Publishing pragmatic trials.

BACKGROUND: Pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) are an important research approach for nurse researchers seeking to bring efficacious interventions to the real world of clinical practice. These approaches take into account the complex and often messy conditions of clinical care, involving patients with comorbid conditions, many providers providing the intervention, and limited evaluation data with which to judge effectiveness.

PURPOSE: The purposes of this paper are to describe the challenges for PCT manuscript writer and to review the various guidelines that may be used to assist in manuscript development.

DISCUSSION: Describing the design and results of a PCT in a manuscript for publication is challenging due to the complexity and unique context of these important trials. Guidelines and other resources are available to assist researchers in preparing manuscripts reporting PCTs.