Control Conditions That Are Neither Usual Care Nor No Treatment in Randomized Trials of Psychoeducational Palliative Care Interventions: A Systematic Review:

Background:Determining intervention efficacy depends as much on the control group as on the intervention, but little attention has been given to the control condition in psychoeducational trials in palliative care.Objectives:To examine (1) research practice regarding control conditions that are neither usual care nor no-treatment controls in randomized trials of psychoeducational palliative care interventions and (2) the rationale and completeness of the descriptions of control conditions in trial reports.Methods:PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Web of Science were searched. After screening 1603 articles, 70 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. The final sample included 9 trial reports. We used the Delphi list for quality assessment and the modified intervention taxonomy checklist to assess active intervention and control conditions.Results:Four trials used an attention control designed to be equivalent to the structure of the active intervention. In another 4, the control condition included som...