pragmatic trial


pragmatic trial

A clinical trial that measures effectiveness (i.e., the degree of beneficial effect of a drug or intervention in real clinical practice) by testing a full range of patients—with variable compliance, co-morbidities and polypharmacy—who might be treated with the drug or intervention. If an intervention has a significant beneficial effect in a pragmatic trial, then it has been shown not only that it can work, which reflects the results of a so-called explanatory trial, but also that it does work.

pragmatic trial

A trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment investigated under real-world conditions, rather than during the application of stringent exclusion criteria.See also: trial