Quality of Clinical Trials
Evidence-based medicine attempts to objectively evaluate the quality of clinical research by critically assessing techniques reported by researchers in their publications.
- Trial design considerations. High-quality studies have clearly defined eligibility criteria and have minimal missing data.
- Generalizability considerations. Studies may only be applicable to narrowly defined patient populations and may not be generalizable to other clinical contexts.
- Follow-up. Sufficient time for defined outcomes to occur can influence the study outcomes and the statistical power of a study to detect differences between a treatment and control arm.
- Power. A mathematical calculation can determine if the number of patients is sufficient to detect a difference between treatment arms. A negative study may reflect a lack of benefit, or simply a lack of sufficient quantities of patients to detect a difference.
Read more about this topic: Evidence-based Medicine
Famous quotes containing the words quality of, quality and/or trials:
“Our sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place of dilettanteism [sic] and make us feel that the quality of our action is not a matter of indifference.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“... all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments of my whole life, are light, when balanced with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the theological dogmas which I sincerely believed, and the gloom connected with everything associated with the name of religion, the church, the parsonage, the graveyard, and the solemn, tolling bell.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)