A network for students interested in evidence-based health care
Tutorials and Fundamentals

How certain is the evidence?

This is the thirty-fifth blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

The certainty of the evidence (the extent to which the research provides a good indication of the likely effects of treatments) can affect the treatment decisions people make. For example, someone might decide not to use or to pay for a treatment if the certainty of the evidence is low or very low.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

Do treatment comparisons reflect your circumstances?

This is the thirty-fourth blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

Comparisons designed to evaluate whether a treatment can work under ideal circumstances may not reflect what you can expect under usual circumstances.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

O mais novo não é necessariamente melhor

This is a Portuguese translation of the fifth in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 Key Concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims. With thanks to Henrique Pinho Volker and Cochrane Brazil for the translation.

This blog explains that new treatments are often assumed to be better simply because they are new or because they are more expensive. However, they are only very slightly likely to be better than other available treatments.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

Are the treatments practical in your setting?

This is the thirty-third blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

Are the treatments practical in your setting? Be aware that treatments available to you may be sufficiently different from those in the research studies that the results may not apply to you.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

Are you very different from the people studied?

This is the thirty-second blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

Are you very different from the people studied? Systematic reviews of studies that only include animals or a selected minority of people may not provide results that are relevant to most people. This may be misleading.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

Do the outcomes measured matter to you?

This is the thirty-first blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

A systematic review of fair comparisons of treatments should measure outcomes that are important. A fair comparison may not include all outcomes that are relevant to treatments. Patients, professionals and researchers may have different views about which outcomes are important.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

Don’t confuse “no evidence of a difference” with “evidence of no difference”

This is the thirtieth blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

Systematic reviews sometimes conclude that there is “no evidence of a difference” when there is uncertainty about the difference between two treatments. This is often misinterpreted as meaning that there is “no difference” between the treatments compared.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

Don’t confuse “statistical significance” with “importance”

This is the twenty-ninth blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

“Statistical significance” is often confused with “importance”. The cut-off for considering a result as statistically significant is arbitrary, and statistically non-significant results can be either informative or inconclusive.

View More Posts

Want to blog for us?

Register to become an S4BE Contributor

Popular Articles

Tutorials and Fundamentals

Critical Appraisal: A Checklist

You are sat down with an article or review. Now you want to critically appraise it. This blog features a checklist of 20 questions to allow you to do just that.

News
Blogging tips banner

Blogging Tips

We’ve put together some guidance on how, what, and why to blog. If you’re after some advice or tips, this might be a good place to start before you dive into writing for S4BE, or any blog, really.

Tutorials and Fundamentals

All should be followed up

This is the nineteenth blog in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

People in treatment comparisons who are not followed up to the end of the study may have worse outcomes than those who are followed up. For example, they may have dropped out because the treatment was not working or because of side effects. If those people are excluded, the findings of the study may be misleading.