How equitable, diverse and inclusive are UK primary care trials? A systematic review

Background Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are central to our evidence-informed healthcare system and their findings greatly influence clinical guidelines. More trials are being delivered in primary care however, for the findings to be generalisable, they should be inclusive of the populations for which the intervention is targeted. The NIHR’s INCLUDE project looked to address this by creating a framework to consider inclusivity throughout each step of the trial process, concluding at the end of 2021. The PRO EDI initiative looks to improve how equity, diversity and inclusion are handled in evidence synthesis, outlining characteristics about trial participants to guide data extraction. Aim This systematic review aims to address the question ‘How equitable, diverse and inclusive are UK primary care trials?’ Method This systematic review will be carried out in accordance with PRISMA guidelines and is pending registration on PROSPERO (submitted). MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) will be searched to identify any RCT conducted in the UK from January 2022 – September 2024. Covidence will be used to assist in the review. Preliminary searches have identified 4471 records for title and abstract screening. Results This work is ongoing, but we aim to present the prevalence of PRO EDI characteristics of trial participants in the UK primary care setting at the conference. Conclusion With our findings we hope to describe the state of equity, diversity and inclusion of trial participants in UK primary care, in the post-INCLUDE framework period.