Biostatistics Controlling for biases72 Controlling for biases72
Bias refers to systematic errors that result from the way the study was designed, executed, or interpreted
Common sources of bias in clinical trials include
Lack of (or failure in) randomization, leading to unbalanced groups
- Patients in each group should not be significantly different demographically and with respect to medications, comorbidities, medical histories, etc.
Poor blinding, leading to unfair treatment and biased assessments
Large numbers of patients lost to follow-up
Bias must be assessed before CIs can be interpreted
Even very large samples and very narrow CIs can be misleading if the studies were biased
Bias refers to systematic errors that result from the way the study was designed, executed, or interpreted
Common sources of bias in clinical trials include
Lack of (or failure in) randomization, leading to unbalanced groups
– Patients in each group should not be significantly different demographically and with respect to medications, comorbidities, medical histories, etc.
Poor blinding, leading to unfair treatment and biased assessments
Large numbers of patients lost to follow-up
Bias must be assessed before CIs can be interpreted
Even very large samples and very narrow CIs can be misleading if the studies were biased