Critical Appraisal Flashcards
What is a placebo
An intervention of no intended therapeutic value
What is the placebo effect
Beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, not attributable to the
properties of the placebo, & therefore due to the patient’s belief in that treatment
What is standard of care
Treatment agreed by experts to be appropriate, acceptable and widely used
What is primary end point
Main result measured at the end of a study to see if given treatment worked
What is secondary end point
Other results measured at different time points of the study to assess impact of intervention
What is clinical end point
The occurrence of disease, symptom or sign that forms one of the target outcomes of the trial
What is surrogate endpoint
measure of effect of treatment that may correlate with a real clinical
endpoint but does not have a guaranteed relationship, e.g. laboratory marker
What is composite end point
A composite endpoint combines two Primary outcomes together. This may
be if patients develop vomiting and/or diarrhoea or something like heart failure and/or death.
What is absolute risk reduction
Amount by which therapy or intervention reduces risk of bad outcome.
Difference in AR (Absolute Risk) in exposed and unexposed (Control event rate - experimental event rate)
What is number needed to treat
Number needed to treat inorder to prevent one additional bad outcome
NNT= 1/ARR
How would you increase power of a study
Increase sample size
Larger effect size
Low variability
What is Intention to treat
All participants randomised are included in the statistical analysis and analysed according to the group they were originally assigned, regardless of what treatment (it any) they received.
Measure EFFECTIVENESS
Eliminated bias
Preserves randomisation and maintains sample size
What is per protocol
• All participants that completed/complied with
protocol are included in the protocol.
• Provides information about efficacy
What is Generalisability
Applicability of research findings and conclusions from the sample
population to the population at large
Are the populations under study too selective to not be a representation
of the general population?
• How were participants selected? Any bias?
