21 While this was likely to be a valid assumption for this study, as participants and clinicians were blinded to allocation, this is less likely to be valid for non-blinded studies.
According to allocations this week from the Higher Education Funding Council (Hefce), the body that handles university funding in England for the Government, three-quarters of English universities are facing real-term cuts as a result of the squeeze on public finances.
Although the staff in charge of the interventions could not be blinded to the allocations, this process was performed in the central module, as was the screening phase, and interviewers not involved with the intervention made the baseline and final evaluations.
As MEC couples also have elevated distress, and to blind participants to group allocation, this study will not employ a 'no treatment' control group.
Owing to the difficulty in blinding clubs to group allocation, this will be an open trial with club representatives told of the treatment status of their club following pretest data collection.
Indeed, our data lends support to the development of a more coordinated and, potentially, national approach to allocation decisions in this context.
After discussion with the trial Steering Group (who were blinded to allocation and outcome), this participant was excluded from any further analysis.
Our findings suggest that largely local and relatively ad hoc decision making processes are being made in relation to resource allocations for predictive genetic tests and that a more coordinated and, potentially, national approach to allocation decisions in this context may be appropriate.
Utilitarians believe that the greatest health gain for the greatest number is efficient and that whilst some will not benefit as a consequence of the methods used to determine allocation, this is a price worth paying for the greater good (and morally the best approach because it is the most efficient) [ 34 ].
This is particularly so since in the first instance Government authorities may not be immediately convinced to commit budgetary allocations to this activity.
While it was not possible to blind the researcher to participants' allocation in this study, the interviewer used interview sheets with standardised wording with pre-coded responses.
