TY - JOUR
T1 - Perils of the random experiment.
AU - Moyé, Lemuel A.
AU - Deswal, Anita
N1 - Copyright:
This record is sourced from MEDLINE/PubMed, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - Most medical research is executed on samples selected from large populations. Nevertheless, health care researchers often blur the difference between interpreting sample-based research and evaluating research that included the entire population of interest. This is an implication-critical distinction; in population research, every result applies to the population (because the entire population was included in the analysis), although only a few results from sample-based research can be extended to the population at large. Treating every result from sample-based research as if that result applies to the population is misleading. Using nonmathematic terminology, this article develops the reason for the differences in the implications of these two research perspectives. In sample-based research, the best indicators of which results should be extended from the sample to the population are the presence of (1) a prospective plan for that experiment; and (2) the execution of the experiment according to that plan (concordant execution). The absence of these two features produces execution and analysis decisions based on the incoming data stream-the hallmark of the random experiment. In this latter paradigm, allowing the data to influence the execution and analysis decisions renders the usual estimates of effect size, standard errors, confidence intervals, and P values untrustworthy. Readers of clinical trial results must be vigilant for nonprotocol-driven research and understand that the results from these programs are at best exploratory and cannot be used to answer scientific questions.
AB - Most medical research is executed on samples selected from large populations. Nevertheless, health care researchers often blur the difference between interpreting sample-based research and evaluating research that included the entire population of interest. This is an implication-critical distinction; in population research, every result applies to the population (because the entire population was included in the analysis), although only a few results from sample-based research can be extended to the population at large. Treating every result from sample-based research as if that result applies to the population is misleading. Using nonmathematic terminology, this article develops the reason for the differences in the implications of these two research perspectives. In sample-based research, the best indicators of which results should be extended from the sample to the population are the presence of (1) a prospective plan for that experiment; and (2) the execution of the experiment according to that plan (concordant execution). The absence of these two features produces execution and analysis decisions based on the incoming data stream-the hallmark of the random experiment. In this latter paradigm, allowing the data to influence the execution and analysis decisions renders the usual estimates of effect size, standard errors, confidence intervals, and P values untrustworthy. Readers of clinical trial results must be vigilant for nonprotocol-driven research and understand that the results from these programs are at best exploratory and cannot be used to answer scientific questions.
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U2 - 10.1097/00045391-200303000-00006
DO - 10.1097/00045391-200303000-00006
M3 - Review article
C2 - 12629589
AN - SCOPUS:0037827769
SN - 1075-2765
VL - 10
SP - 112
EP - 121
JO - American journal of therapeutics
JF - American journal of therapeutics
IS - 2
ER -