Controversial questions (part three): is there randomised controlled trial evidence for health visiting?
Abstract
Questions are often asked by managers, commissioners and policy-makers to find out what is, or should be, happening within health visiting services. This is the final paper in a series of three that draws on the experience of providing evidence to the Health Select Committee's 2008 inquiry into health inequalities. Material submitted has been adapted and expanded according to three common, often controversial questions.
This paper considers the relevance and place of randomised controlled trials in relation to health visiting services. Increasingly, commissioners require that services and programmes that they fund to be supported by this form of evidence, and many ask, 'Is there a randomised controlled trial of health visiting?' The immediate answer to this question is 'no', but there is a wealth of evidence relevant to health visiting, much of it from experimental research and systematic reviews. The question itself is not appropriately framed, so three alternative questions are proposed that can help to guide a search for evidence that is relevant to health visiting.