Other Terms
- The term retrospective study is sometimes used as another term for a case-control study. This use of the term "retrospective study" is misleading, however, and should be avoided because other research designs besides case-control studies are also retrospective in orientation.
- Superiority trials are designed to demonstrate that one treatment is more effective than another.
- Non-inferiority trials are designed to demonstrate that a treatment is at least not appreciably worse than another.
- Equivalence trials are designed to demonstrate that one treatment is as effective as another.
- When using "parallel groups", each patient receives one treatment; in a "crossover study", each patient receives several treatments.
- A longitudinal study assesses research subjects over two or more points in time; by contrast, a cross-sectional study assesses research subjects at one point in time.
Read more about this topic: Clinical Study Design
Famous quotes containing the word terms:
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“I am happy to find you are on good terms with your neighbors. It is almost the most important circumstance in life, since nothing is so corroding as frequently to meet persons with whom one has any difference.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)