Process evaluation
To ensure EAGLE’s results can be understood, a prospectively designed process evaluation is being undertaken. The parallel process evaluation will demonstrate how the education resources have reached learners (engagement), to what extent patients have received, or been exposed to, the EAGLE Safe Anastomosis Programme in the post-intervention groups (implementation), and help identify factors that have promoted or distracted intervention implementation. This will allow the project’s outcomes to be examined, to delineate motivators and barriers for the intervention and to decipher any intervention failure from an implementation failure. This analysis can enhance a study’s overall results and avoid drawing false conclusions of failure (or success) in either aspect of study delivery.