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Abstract
The Benchmarking Controlled Trial (BCT) is a novel concept which covers all observational studies aiming to assess effectiveness. BCTs provide evidence of the comparative effectiveness between health service providers, and of effectiveness due to particular features of the health and social care systems. BCTs complement randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as the sources of evidence on effectiveness. This paper presents a definition of the BCT; compares the position of BCTs in assessing effectiveness with that of RCTs; presents a checklist for assessing methodological validity of a BCT; and pilot-tests the checklist with BCTs published recently in the leading medical journals.
Funding: No outside funding.
Declaration of interest: The author declares no support from any organization for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organization that might have an interest in the submitted work; and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.