Research Evaluation Exam Flashcards
Physician Assistant Competencies:
Patient care, Professionalism, Systems-based practice.
Reasons for Research Evaluation
Make decisions about diagnostic and therapeutic interventions based on patient information and preferences, current scientific evidence, and informed clinical judgment.
Patient Care
Commitment to excellence and on-going professional development.
Professionalism
Partner with supervising physicians, health care managers, and other health care providers to assess, coordinate, and improve the delivery and effectiveness of health care and patient outcomes.
Systems-based practice
- Analyze practice experience and perform activities using a systematic methodology.
- Locate, appraise, and integrate evidence from scientific studies - Study designs and statistical methods
- Utilize information technology to manage information, access medical information, and support their own education
- Recognize and appropriately address personal biases,
Practice-based Learning and Improvement
The practice of health care in which the practitioner systematically finds, appraises, and uses the most current and valid research findings as the basis for clinical decisions.
Evidence based practice
Results in the best possible outcome for your patients.
Integration of research evidence and clinical experience
Original study design
Primary Literature
- Databases Point of Care resources
- Up To Date
- MD Consult
- Epocrates
- Lexicomp
Secondary Literature
- Primary (Analytic) Studies
- Experimental
- Observational Secondary (Integrative) Studies
Medical Literature
Those that report original research.
- Experimental
- Observational
Primary (Analytic) Studies
An intervention is made or variables are manipulated.
Example: experiment, randomized controlled trial, non-randomized controlled trial
Primary (Analytic) Studies Experimental
No intervention is made and no variables are manipulated.
Example: cohort, case-control, cross-sectional, descriptive, surveys, case reports, etc.
Primary (Analytic) Studies Observational
- Author’s peers and recognized researchers in the field read and evaluate a paper (article) submitted for publication.
- Articles/scholarly journals accepted meet the discipline’s expected standards of expertise and passed through this review process.
Peer Review
- Authors ->
- Authors submission ->
- Editor ->
- Peers ->
- Peer comments ->
- Editor roll-up comments ->
- Author -> Repeat process
Peer Review Process
A journal’s impact factor for a particular year
Impact score
Total number of times its articles were cited during the two previous ➗ Total number of citable articles in the journal during those two years.
Calculation of Impact Score
Sources for Literature (credible)
- PubMed
- Google Scholar
- UpToDate
- Medscape
- DoD/Va Clinical Practice Guidelines
Finding Literary Sources
Is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to control health problems.
Epidemiology
- Reduce morbidity and mortality from disease
- Extent of disease
- Evaluate and develop preventative and therapeutic care
- Develop policy
Objectives of Epidemiology
Critical to public health and clinical practice to determine information
Clinical Practice & Epidemiology: Importance
Multi-step process:
- Determine whether an association exists between an exposure or an outcome.
- If there is an association…is it causal?
- Derive appropriate inferences about a possible causal relationship from the patterns are found.
Epidemiologic approach
The branch of statistics that deals with data relating to living organisms.
Biostatistics
Tools of statistics to help answer pressing research questions in medicine, biology, and public health
Importance of Biostatistics
Methods, Materials & Patients:
What methods are used to evaluate medical literature?
- Study design
- Subject selection procedures
- Method of measurement
- Description of analytic techniques
- Read only what is interesting and useful
- Scan the article to gain a quick overview
- Concentrate on the methods section
- Reserve the right for final judgment
Tips for Evaluating Medical Literature
- Observes associations
- Show patterns of disease occurrence
- Helps to generate hypotheses
Descriptive research
- Analyzes associations
- Investigates relationships
- Tests hypotheses
Analytic research
- Descriptive epidemiologic studies reveal the patterns of disease occurrence in human populations.
- Provide general observations concerning the relationship of disease to basic characteristics. IE: Person, Place, Time
Descriptive Studies
Examples: Case Reports Clinical Series Populations (Ecologic Studies)
Descriptive Studies
Descriptive Study or Analytic Study?
Alerting the medical community to what types of persons are at risk for a new…..or old disease?
Descriptive Studies
Descriptive Study or Analytic Study?
Assisting in the rational planning of health and medical care needs:
I.e.. How many PAs do we need in the field?
Descriptive Studies
Descriptive Study or Analytic Study?
Provide clues to disease etiology and questions or hypotheses for further study.
Descriptive Studies
Attempt to provide insight into etiology or find/ determine better patient outcomes.
- Experimental
- Observational
Explanatory Studies
Has an active intervention from the investigator.
Explanatory Studies - Experimental
Examples of _____________
- Controlled trial
- Clinical trial
- Educational intervention
- Healthcare trial
- Intervention trial
Explanatory Studies - Experimental
Investigator observes nature
Explanatory Studies - Observational
Examples of _____________
- Case-control
- Follow-up
- Cross-sectional
- Cohort or follow up
Explanatory Studies - Observational
Descriptive Study or Analytic Study?
- Experimental
- Clinical Trial
- Community Trial
- Educational Intervention
Analytic Study
Descriptive Study or Analytic Study?
- Observational
- Case-control
- Cohort (follow up)
- Cross-sectional
Analytic Study
- A narrative in the professional literature that identifies a single incident and discusses pertinent factors related to the patient
- Brings a novel or unusual patient to the attention of colleagues
- Information is preliminary and unrefined in terms of research methodology
Case Report
As the name implies, this type of study analyzes a number of individual cases that share a commonality
Usually relatively low numbers of subjects
Case Series
- Examine adverse events or effects - Catalog new diseases or outbreaks - Determine the feasibility or safety of a new treatment or intervention - Discuss the potential efficacy of a new treatment
Case Series are used to:
Case reports and case series lack?
Sufficient methodological rigor
- Data does not necessarily extrapolate to larger populations - Evidence may be circumstantial - Confounding factors may be present - But – both typically indicate the need for further study
Case reports and case series lack…
- Examine the relationship between exposures and diseases as measured in a population r - Utilizing data from surveys or registries - Followed by an analytic study to see if the association holds true in individuals.
Descriptive study design - Ecologic Studies
Is a type of bias specific to ecological studies. Occurs when relationships that exist for groups are assumed to also be true for individuals.
Ecological Fallacy
Attempt to provide insight into etiology or find/ determine better patient outcomes: - Experimental - Observational
Explanatory Studies
Has an active intervention from the investigator. Examples: - Controlled trial - Clinical trial - Educational intervention - Healthcare trial - Intervention trial
Explanatory Studies - Experimental
Investigator observes nature. Examples: - Case-control - Follow-up - Cross-sectional - Cohort or follow up
Explanatory Studies - Observational
- Examines the relationship between outcomes and other variables of interest at one particular time. - Determines prevalence (% of population) not incidence (rate) - Enrolls a large number of individuals - Cannot show causality, does not separate cause/effect - Does not establish a temporal relationship between risk factors and disease because they are measured at the same time
Cross-sectional studies
Strengths of __________ - Can assess multiple outcomes and exposures simultaneously - Can be completed quickly - Data generated can lead to further studies - Can generate prevalence
Cross-sectional studies
Limitations of __________ - No time reference: “Snapshot In Time”- like looking at a photograph - Only useful for common conditions - Cannot calculate incidence, it is a prevalence study Results are dependent on the study population
Cross-sectional studies
- Studies specific condition (cases) and compares with people who do not have the condition (controls). - The researcher looks back to identify factors or exposures - Design may follow a case-series (as a retrospective look at causes). - Captures the cause and effect relationship by comparing the frequency of a risk factor among those how are exposed and not-exposed.
Case-control studies
Strengths of __________ - Good for studying rare outcomes - Can evaluate many exposures - Ideal for initial, explanatory idea - Simple & fast – we already know the outcomes - Efficient-no waiting for outcome to occur - Inexpensive
Case-control studies
Limitations of __________ - Single outcome - High risk for bias - High risk for confounding variables - Other factors may exist those influence outcomes - Can’t determine the prevalence - Temporality - Can’t make causal interpretations - Can’t determine the incidence - Can’t calculate Relative risk
Case-control studies
Selection Bias: the inappropriate selection of cases or controls.
Case-control studies bias
__________ bias: Can be selected from a variety of sources: Hospitals, Clinics, Registries. If cases are selected from a single source, and risk factors from that facility may not be generalizable to all patients with that disease.
Case-control studies Selection bias - Case
__________ bias: come from the same reference population that cases are derived from. An inappropriate control group can have the opposite effect and obscure an important link between disease and its cause
Case-control studies Selection bias - Control
__________ bias: Recall Bias (Subject Bias) is the main form of information bias in case-control studies. Occurs when there is a differential recall of exposure between cases and controls.
Case-control studies Information Bias
__________ bias: Occurs when the researcher/observer evaluates cases vs controls differentially.
Case-control studies Researcher/Observer Bias
__________ bias: Arises when case subjects who think they have been exposed to responds at a higher rate to controls.
Case-control studies Voluntary Reponses Bias
__________ is the process of selecting the controls so they are similar to the cases in certain characteristics, such as age, race, sex, socioeconomic status, and occupation. - Individual - Group-based
Control Biases: Matching
Individual or Group Matching? For each case selected for the study, a control is selected who is similar to the case in terms of the specific variable
Control Biases: Matching Individual
Individual or Group Matching? Select controls with a certain characteristic that is identical to the proportion of cases with same characteristic.
Control Biases: Matching Group-Based
- If you select too many matching characteristics it is difficulty to find an appropriate control. - You lose the ability to study a matched variable.
Control Bias: Problems
Offers independent estimates of exposure among different samples of non-cases. Increases strength of the study.
Control Bias: Mutliple Controls
Case-Control Study: __________ A variant of a case-control study Each case becomes their own individual control Used for transient exposures during a discrete occurrence
Case-Control Study: Case-crossover
Case-Control Study: __________ Large cohort, large enrollment studies Controls are a sample of individuals who are at risk for the disease/outcome at the time each case of the disease develops.
Case-Control Study: Nested