Danny Liew Lectures Flashcards
What is PICOT?
Population Intervention Comparator/Control Outcome Timing
What is level one level of evidence?
systematic review of RCTs
What do you call the extent to which the results of a study are valid for the sample studied?
internal validity
What does internal validity depend on? 3 things
study design
data collection
data analysis
Why randomize? 2 reasons
reduce confounders
Why would you stratify randomization? eg. country/smoking status
make composition of groups more similar with regarding key confounders and reduce confounding
what’s selection bias?
investigators assigning to particular intervention
Why blind?
reduce information bias
Who’s blinded?
- single-blind
- double blind
- triple blind
- subjects
- subjects + investigators
- subjects + investigators + outcome assessors
when outcomes are determined according to strict standardized, objective criteria, this is called:
Objective Outcome Ascertainment
How would you achieve Objective Outcome Ascertainment in a multi-centre study?
have a centralised process
What’s intention to treat?
Keeping the subjects in their randomized group regardless of actual dropouts, crossovers, losses
What’s the point of intention-to-treat?
reduce selection bias
What does ITT analysis do to treatment effect?
always underestimates because assumes:
less in intervention group
more in control group
What’s the p-value?
probability that the result arose from chance
What’s the cut off for p-value?
0.05 not stat significant
What’s a 95% confidence interval?
interval where you’re 95% sure the value is within
What’s it mean if there’s no null value?
the result is stat significant
What is a null value?
if there’s no difference between groups compared:
1.0 for ratios
0 for absolute risk differences
How are precision and Confidence Interval (CI) related?
The narrower the CI window, the more precise
If you have bigger sample size vs. smaller sample size, how does that affect CI width?
bigger = narrower CI
smaller - wider CI
What is a type 1 alpha error?
study shows effect, but in reality no effect
what is a type 2 beta error?
study shows no effect, reality there is an effect. (false negative)
What would lack of power indicate?
non stat significant results possibly due to small sample size
Number needed to treat is what?
how many people need to be treated to prevent outcome in one person
how to calculate NTT?
1 / absolute risk or rate reduction
What’s NNT affected by? 2 things:
relative effect
underlying likelihood of outcome
External validity depends on?
PICOT
Does a systematic review only focus on a single question?
Yes.
How is the criteria for the systematic review?
well-defined
what kind of data does a systematic review looks at?
clinical trial
observational data
4 key words for systematic review process:
identifies
appraises
selects
synthesises
What are the 4 purposes of a meta-analysis?
increase power
resolve uncertainty
improve precision
answer other questions
3 important data sources for systematic review
Medline, Embase, CINAHL etc
reference list
grey literature
inclusion/exclusion criteria?
inline with question
PICOT
sample size
aware of bias eg. language
How many people for selecting studies?
2 people independently
Quality of studies included important why?
garbage in = garbage out