The interpretation of clinical trials

Format: Texts

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Language/s: English

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Resource Link: View the Text

Target Audience: Further education

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Short Description:

Peter Greenberg’s 9-minute read on the interpretation of clinical trials.

Key Concepts addressed:

• 1-6 Expert opinion is not always right
• 2-2 Comparison groups should be similar
• 2-5 People should not know which treatment they get
• 2-7 All should be followed up
• 2-8 Consider all of the relevant fair comparisons
• 2-17 Don’t confuse “statistical significance” with “importance”
• 2-18 Don’t confuse “no evidence” with “no effect”
• 2-14 Average measures of effects can be misleading

Details

Summary

Clinical trials are the foundations of evidence-based treatments. Trials must be critically appraised to confirm the validity of conclusions. Further analysis is required to show if the results from the trial, where patients are carefully selected and followed up in detail, can be extrapolated to other patients and different settings. Data from additional sources including other trials, meta-analyses, practice guidelines, trusted opinions and clinical experiences modify prescribing practices.

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