Invited Commentary: Assessing Treatment Effects by Using Observational Analyses--Opportunities and Limitations Export

@article{citeulike:5279308, abstract = {Making decisions about medical treatments based upon valid evidence is critical to improve health-care quality, outcomes, and value. Although such research commonly connotes the use of randomized controlled trials, experimental methods are not always feasible, and research using observational, quasi-experimental, and other nonexperimental methods may also be important. At the same time, nonexperimental methods are inherently susceptible to various types of bias and thus present special challenges in the search for valid and generalizable evidence. The study by Gardarsdottir et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2009;170(3):280-285), on which this commentary is based, addresses a key potential source of bias--mismeasurement of patients' duration of treatment--in previous research on pharmacotherapy for depression. However, the authors' study is unlikely to address other potential sources of bias, which may make interpretation of their findings more difficult. 10.1093/aje/kwp137}, author = {Wang, Philip S. and Schoenbaum, Michael}, citeulike-article-id = {5279308}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwp137}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/170/3/286}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19498072}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=19498072}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1093/aje/kwp137}, journal = {Am. J. Epidemiol.}, keywords = {bias, comments, observation, statistics}, month = {August}, number = {3}, pages = {286--287}, posted-at = {2009-07-27 09:37:10}, priority = {2}, title = {Invited Commentary: Assessing Treatment Effects by Using Observational Analyses--Opportunities and Limitations}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwp137}, volume = {170}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5279308 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5279308 N2 - Making decisions about medical treatments based upon valid evidence is critical to improve health-care quality, outcomes, and value. Although such research commonly connotes the use of randomized controlled trials, experimental methods are not always feasible, and research using observational, quasi-experimental, and other nonexperimental methods may also be important. At the same time, nonexperimental methods are inherently susceptible to various types of bias and thus present special challenges in the search for valid and generalizable evidence. The study by Gardarsdottir et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2009;170(3):280-285), on which this commentary is based, addresses a key potential source of bias--mismeasurement of patients' duration of treatment--in previous research on pharmacotherapy for depression. However, the authors' study is unlikely to address other potential sources of bias, which may make interpretation of their findings more difficult. 10.1093/aje/kwp137 IS - 3 JF - Am. J. Epidemiol. EP - 287 TI - Invited Commentary: Assessing Treatment Effects by Using Observational Analyses--Opportunities and Limitations VL - 170 SP - 286 KW - bias KW - comments KW - observation KW - statistics AU - Wang, Philip AU - Schoenbaum, Michael PY - 2009/08/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwp137 ER -