Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T15:26:48.005Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - Clinical Trials: Improving on Clinical Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2023

S. Nassir Ghaemi
S. Nassir Ghaemi
Affiliation:
Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston
Get access

Summary

Clinical trials are conducted to solve the problem of confounding bias by conducting randomized studies. Examples are given with antidepressants for how clinicians see clinical benefit in practice but randomized clinical trials (RCTs) show that most of the benefit has to do with placebo effects, not the drug pharmacology as clinicians would assume. The conduct of clinical trials is discussed, including the risks of false positive and false negative results depending on how data are analyzed or how sample size is planned. Common errors are identified and criticized.

Keywords

antidepressant efficacyplacebofalse positivefalse negativep-valuesstatistical powerside effects
Type
Chapter
Information
A Clinician's Guide to Statistics in Mental Health , pp. 27 - 42
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×