Structure of COMPASS

Meeting the needs of patients for supportive and palliative care typically requires appropriate assessment and the application of multi-component (complex) interventions based on this. Complex interventions comprise a number of separate elements and, compared with simple drug interventions, their evaluation poses challenges.

Whilst the randomized controlled trial remains the best way to provide reliable and accurate estimates of benefit, the successful development, evaluation and implementation of complex interventions requires a planned and staged research strategy. This needs the use of other research methods.

COMPASS has a unified research theme woven from three interdependent strands of work that are based on the five stages for the development and evaluation of complex interventions developed by the UK Medical Research Council and others. Each work strand is led by senior researchers and provide training and increased capacity.