What is the WATCH Trial?

Urban Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) or urban Indigenous health services have been invited to join the WATCH trial.

Over a 2 year period, at each of 6 sites, Research Officers will recruit approximately 85 children who have AOM diagnosed by their General Practitioner (GP) or Nurse Practitioner (NP). A computer program is used to randomly allocate children to one of two groups;

1. Immediate antibiotics. 
2. 'Watchful waiting' - no antibiotics. 

All children will be offered pain relief. 

After 3 days: A Research Officer from the health service will phone or visit the parent or carer.

After one week: The GP or NP will check the child. 

After 2 and 7 weeks: The Research Officer will check the child again at the health service. 

At any time: The GP or NP can change treatment or give antibiotics at any time if necessary. 

After 3 months: The Chief Investigator (CI) will also look at the child's health service record after 3 months to check if there have been any problems. 

As part of the study, we will also check to see which treatment is the best value for money. This will take into account things like how sick the child is with the infection, how much time parents and carers spend looking after the child and how much money they spend.

Another part of the study will look at how carers, Aboriginal Health Workers, GPs, NPs, researchers and others feel about treatment of AOM and how the study worked. We will ask questions like 'what was it like being in the study?', 'how do you feel about antibiotics?', 'what worked well in the study?' and 'what could we have done differently?'. This study will provide good evidence for treatment of AOM in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in cities. This research process will provide opportunities to improve the quality of future research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The project will take place in partnership with 5 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) and one Indigenous health service that have formally approved the study taking place in their communities. At all times the university researchers will work respectfully with these services. 

Aboriginal researchers: Four members of the research team are Aboriginal researchers and six of the research team have worked for a long time in Aboriginal Medical Services (AMSs). All are strong supporters of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community control of health and health research.
 
Associate Investigators: Each service will nominate one of their staff as an Associate Investigator to advise the research team about how best to work with their health service.
 
Local Reference Group: Each health service will establish a Reference Group to link the researchers and the community.

Research officers: Each health service will employ ROs to receive research and clinical training from the WATCH team.

Funding: The study is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Funding includes payment to health services, Reference Group members, gifts for parental time, and specialist diagnostic equipment which will remain with the health services to ensure ongoing "best-practice" approaches to diagnosing and treating AOM.
 
Ethical approvals: the study has been approved by AH&MRC, Menzies School of Health Research, Metro South Health, University of Queensland and Western Sydney University Human Research Ethics Committees.