About the Authors

Elizabeth Gargon

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

e.gargon@liverpool.ac.uk

Affiliation MRC North West Hub for Trials Methodology Research, Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Sarah L. Gorst

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation MRC North West Hub for Trials Methodology Research, Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Nicola L. Harman

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation MRC North West Hub for Trials Methodology Research, Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Valerie Smith

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Karen Matvienko-Sikar

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Public Health, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

Paula R. Williamson

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation MRC North West Hub for Trials Methodology Research, Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

EG and PW are members of the COMET Management Group. All other authors had no competing interests. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.