%0 Journal Article
%T Normalisation process theory: a framework for developing, evaluating and implementing complex interventions
%A Elizabeth Murray
%A Shaun Treweek
%A Catherine Pope
%A Anne MacFarlane
%A Luciana Ballini
%A Christopher Dowrick
%A Tracy Finch
%A Anne Kennedy
%A Frances Mair
%A Catherine O'Donnell
%A Bie Ong
%A Tim Rapley
%A Anne Rogers
%A Carl May
%J BMC Medicine
%D 2010
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1741-7015-8-63
%X In this paper, we suggest that the NPT can act as a sensitising tool, enabling researchers to think through issues of implementation while designing a complex intervention and its evaluation. The need to ensure trial procedures that are feasible and compatible with clinical practice is not limited to trials of complex interventions, and NPT may improve trial design by highlighting potential problems with recruitment or data collection, as well as ensuring the intervention has good implementation potential.The NPT is a new theory which offers trialists a consistent framework that can be used to describe, assess and enhance implementation potential. We encourage trialists to consider using it in their next trial.Understanding, developing and evaluating complex interventions is essential for improving health and healthcare. Ten years ago, the Medical Research Council (MRC) published its highly influential framework for developing and evaluating interventions that 'are built up from a number of components, which may act both independently and inter-dependently' [[1], page 2]. The MRC framework has been extended and refined [2,3], emphasising, for example, that the early phases of a trial should be seen as iterative rather than linear [2,3]; that both intervention development and evaluation require a strong theoretical foundation [4]; that detailed descriptions of the intervention and the context of the evaluation are needed [2,5]; that modelling to estimate the potential benefits is important before proceeding to a trial [6,7]; and that qualitative methods can assist with understanding the processes involved in the intervention and evaluation [8,9].The revised framework has proved invaluable for health service researchers, but there remain substantial problems in the design and conduct of complex interventions. For example, recruitment to trials remains problematic; a review of trials funded by the UK's Health Technology Assessment or the Medical Research Council found
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/8/63