A review and definition of 'usual care' in genetic counseling trials to standardize use in research.

ABSTRACT: The descriptor 'usual care' refers to standard or routine care. Yet, no formal definition exists. The need to define what constitutes usual care arises in clinical research. Often one arm in a trial represents usual care in comparison with a novel intervention. Accordingly, usual care in genetic counseling research appears predominantly in randomized controlled trials. Recent standards for reporting genetic counseling research call for standardization, but do not address usual care. We (1) inventoried all seven studies in the Clinical Sequencing Evidence-Generating Consortium (CSER) about how genetic counseling was conceptualized, conducted, and whether a usual care arm was involved; (2) conducted a review of published randomized control trials in genetic counseling, comparing how research

SUBMITTER: Biesecker BB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7882019 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature