Cautionary tales in the interpretation of observational studies of effects of clinical interventions.
Observational studies of the effectiveness of clinical interventions are proliferating as more 'real-world' clinical data (so called 'big data') are gathered from clinical registries, administrative datasets and electronic health records. While well-conducted randomised controlled trials (RCT) remain the scientific standard in assessing the efficacy of clinical interventions, well-designed observational studies may add to the evidence base of effectiveness in situations where RCT are of limited value or very difficult to perform. Rather than dismissing observational studies, we need to determine what circumstances may justify doing an observational study and when the study is sufficiently rigorous to be considered reasonably trustworthy. This article proposes criteria by which users of the literature might make such determinations.
['Scott|I A|IA|', 'Attia|J|J|']
D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical D006801:Humans D064887:Observational Studies as Topic D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic D012107:Research Design
cautionary tales interpretation observational study clinical interventions