‘Tricks to help you get the result you want from your study (S4BE)

< Back to search results

• Format Websites
• Language/s English
• Target Audience Further education
• EBM Stage 3 - Appraising evidence
• Duration <5 mins
• Difficulty Intermediate

Key Concepts addressed

• 1-3a Beware of conflicting interests
• 2-1a Comparison groups should be similar
• 2-1c Comparison groups should be treated equally
• 2-1g All should be followed up
• 1-1a Treatments can harm
• 2-3f Confidence intervals should be reported

Details

I thought about giving this blog a more sensible title. Something like “things to look out for when reading a paper on a clinical trial”. But, I needed to get your attention, didn’t I….

Let’s set the scene: An increasing number of clinical trials are funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

But this is clearly problematic. In 2012, a Cochrane Review including 49 studies, found that industry-sponsored studies testing drugs and medical devices more often favour the sponsor’s products than non-industry sponsored studies. Read more