Levels of Evidence

Levels of evidence is a ranking system used in evidence-based practices to describe the strength of the results measured in a clinical trial or research study. The design of the study (such as a case report for an individual patient or a double-blinded randomized controlled trial) and the endpoints measured (such as survival or quality of life) affect the strength of the evidence. Levels of evidence range from I-IV.

  • Ia - Evidence from Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
  • Ib - Evidence from at least one Randomized Controlled Trials
  • IIa - Evidence from at least one well designed controlled trial which is not randomized
  • IIb - Evidence from at least one well designed experimental trial
  • III - Evidence from case, correlation, and comparative studies.
  • IV - Evidence from a panel of experts

Famous quotes containing the words levels of, levels and/or evidence:

    Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    The only inequalities that matter begin in the mind. It is not income levels but differences in mental equipment that keep people apart, breed feelings of inferiority.
    Jacquetta Hawkes (b. 1910)

    I believe that no characteristic is so distinctively human as the sense of indebtedness we feel, not necessarily for a favor received, but even for the slightest evidence of kindness; and there is nothing so boorish, savage, inhuman as to appear to be overwhelmed by a favor, let alone unworthy of it.
    Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)