Introduction Flashcards
What does high-quality evidence help guide in healthcare?
Clinical Practice, Public Health, Policies, and Administration
What are examples of knowledge that Health practitioners should know?
- Know which treatments work and which don’t
- Know why some people get sick or injured when others don’t
- Know why some people die earlier than others
- Diagnose and assess patients’ conditions accurately
- Keep up to date with new and better ways to doing things
- Fix disagreements about best ways to do things
- Base their decisions on high quality evidence from research
- Solve new problems where current knowledge is inadequate
What is reflective healthcare?
Reflective healthcare involves thinking about what we’re doing.
What is an empirical basis?
Empirical means “real world” and its basis is on experiments, observations and experiences.
What is research?
The act of deliberately finding or collecting information, either through databases and sources, or discovering new information.
What factors contribute to the “research kitchen”
How studies are designed, how samples are chosen, and measurements. Reasoning of the study, the setup, samples used, measurements and how its reported.
Scientific information thats expressed statistically is referred to as?
Quantitative research
Scientific research that presents findings in words
Qualitative research
What factors can contribute to good research?
Is interesting – people care about it
Builds on earlier knowledge, what’s already known
Is intellectually honest and ethical
Results are true and consistent
Validity and reliability – accurate, consistent and dependable
Can be generalised – results are widely applicable, not limited to that study
Is based on sound reasoning and logic – it all makes sense
Investigates why, not just what happens – it’s about ideas and concepts
Has a useful outcome – is practical, can be put to use
Gain in knowledge; new ideas; insights
Addressed a practical problem – real-world applications
Can be replicated – repeated by others and results checked
What are the three main types of quantitative research?
Intervention studies, Observational studies, and Systematic Reviews.
Intervention studies consist of…
researchers deliberately setting up a change. They intervene and then measure what happens as a result of change.
Observational Studies consist of
understanding the association between events, peoples characteristics, their environment, and behaviour.
Briefly, a systematic review is…
A study of other studies, with data taken from multiple, eligible sources that become combined to arrive at a summary conclusion, creating a stronger result than for the individual studies.
What is the aim of qualitative methodologies?
To seek in-depth information about people’s personal experiences as they perceive them and to expand on their context. Often intentionally non-scientific.
What does PICO mean?
Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome
What is research?
An organised process of inquiry, often including an aim or plan to gain new knowledge
What is methodology?
The overall approach that is chosen when conducting research, with the major two being quantitative and qualitative.
What is the method?
How the research is actually done, including procedures, actions or processes.
What is commonly found in a journal article?
An introduction, methods, results and discussion
What are the types of validity?
Internal, External and Measurement
Validity is…
The quality of being well-founded on fact, or established on sound principles and thoroughly applicable to the case or circumstances, soundness and strength.
In scientific research validity…
refers to the match between the research conclusion and the real world.
What is internal validity?
The truth and accuracy of conclusions from one study or a set of studies combined into one study (i.e systematic review). It is also about whether one thing causes another.
What is external validity?
It is whether experimental conclusions apply beyond the study, that is, whether they apply to the population from which the samples were drawn.
Generalisability is…
extending sample results to the same population from which the sample was drawn, similar situations or practice contexts.
Applicability is…
Whether results apply to other populations and contexts. i.e. Different populations but not exactly the same type from a study.
What is the Hawthorne effect?
The principle follows as, “anything new works”, at least temporarily. Suggests that the presence of any intervention, rather than a specific intervention can lead to improvement
What does the Hawthorne effect impact?
It affects external validity, as it allows interventions to be later used but without research context.
What is the risk of the Hawthorne effect?
It risks research as it can cause participants to modify their behaviour because they know they are being studied
What is the Rosenthal effect?
Where high expectations alone can lead to better performance, often encouraged to reach the desired answer.
What is Measurement Validity?
Whether measurements accurately measure what they were intended to.
A general criteria for evidence quality is?
Validity, Generalisability and Applicability
Clinical practice guidelines are?
Statements that include recommendations intended to optimise patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options
What are some criteria for the GRADE system?
Study limitations – design and procedures
* Consistency of results – within and between studies
* Directness of evidence
* Direct: Two treatments compared in same study
* Indirect: Two treatments each compared with placebo in separate studies – not
as good as direct
* Precision of estimates of how well treatment works
* Bias in choice of publications, selective publication
* Size of the effect, large enough?
* Possible confounding factors confusing the results
* Dose-response gradient
How much treatment for a given amount of benefit?
Types of reporting tools?
CONSORT, STARD, PRISMA, EQUATOR and CASP
What are the 5 types of research methodologies?
Intervention studies, Observational studies, Action research, Qualitative research and Systematic reviews.
Methodologies are
quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods and study designs.
