Introduction to EBM

Question 1

What is a good strategy to help determine a good research question?

Answer 1

PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Observation)

use this acronym to help identify a question that can lead to novel findings

refer to page 10

Question 2

How can we acquire evidence for research questions?

Answer 2

Medline & PubMed are preferred

Cochrane Database

Google Scholar & Google (important, but do not be overeliant)

Question 3

What is a common study design for drug therapy related research?

Answer 3

Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

Question 4

What are the two main categories of all research studies?

Answer 4

Descriptive

Analytic (focus of PHAR 271)

Question 5

What are the characteristics of a descriptive study?

Answer 5

They describe the situation at a given point in time

No intervention by the researcher

ex. survey

Question 6

What are the characteristics of a analytic study?

Answer 6

They describe change in the situation over a given amount of time

Researcher applies an intervention or observes a sample over time

Question 7

What does it mean to appraise a research study?

Answer 7

It is the process of carefully and systematically examining research to judge it validity, results and relevance

Question 8

Why is critical appraisal of research studies important?

Answer 8

Sometimes study results are not always…

1. Valid (differences are not caused by the intervention alone)
2. Safe (invalid results can be harmful/wasteful)
3. Useful (not meaningful or applicable to patient)

Question 9

What are the two main types of validity?

Answer 9

Internal Validity

External Validity

Question 10

What is internal validity?

Answer 10

Are the results due to the intervention (or exposure) or is there something else creating a discrepancy

Question 11

What are the three major threats to internal validity?

Answer 11

1. Chance (random error)
2. Confounding (confusion of effects, correlation is not always causation)
3. Bias (systematic errors that cause incorrect estimates of the association between intervention and outcome OR issues with study design)

Question 12

What is external validity?

Answer 12

Are the results applicable (generalizable) to other populations (patients), settings, and time

Question 13

What are some challenges for acheiving external validity?

Answer 13

Children, sick people, very elderly, and pregnant women are patient groups that are rarely included in trial studies

Therfore, application of trial findings to these patient groups is not straightforward