BMC Medical Research Methodology Tutorials

1. Are the Cochrane group registers comprehensive? A case study of Japanese psychiatry trials

By Are the Cochrane group registers comprehensive? A case study of Japanese psychiatry trials Toshi A Furukawa1 , Toshiya Inada2 , Clive E Adams3 , Hugh McGuire4 , Ataru Inagaki5 and Shoko Nozaki6 1Department of Psychiatry, Nagoya City University Medical School, Mizuho-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya 467-8601 ... read more

2. Incomplete evidence: the inadequacy of databases in tracing published adverse drug reactions in clinical trials

By Incomplete evidence: the inadequacy of databases in tracing published adverse drug reactions in clinical trials Sheena Derry , Yoon Kong Loke and Jeffrey K Aronson Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, OX2 6HE, United Kingdom BMC Medical Research Methodology 2001, 1:7     doi:10.1186/1471... read more

3. Quality control and data-handling in multicentre studies: the case of the Multicentre Project for Tuberculosis Research

By Quality control and data-handling in multicentre studies: the case of the Multicentre Project for Tuberculosis Research Teresa Caloto for the MPTR Study Group Unidad de Investigación en Tuberculosis, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Sinesio Delgado, 6, 28029 Madrid, Spain BMC Medical Research Methodology 2001, 1:14     doi:10.1186/147... read more

4. Estimating the cumulative risk of false positive cancer screenings

By Estimating the cumulative risk of false positive cancer screenings Stuart G Baker1 , Diane Erwin2 and Barnett S Kramer3 1Biometry Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A 2Information Management Services, Inc., Rockville, Maryland, USA 3Office o... read more

5. Effectiveness of different databases in identifying studies for systematic reviews: experience from the WHO systematic review of maternal morbidity an

By Effectiveness of different databases in identifying studies for systematic reviews: experience from the WHO systematic review of maternal morbidity and mortality Ana P Betrán1 , Lale Say1 , A Metin Gülmezoglu1 , Tomas Allen2 and Lynn Hampson3 1UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research,... read more

6. How does study quality affect the results of a diagnostic meta-analysis?

By Background: The use of systematic literature review to inform evidence based practice in diagnostics is rapidly expanding. Although the primary diagnostic literature is extensive, studies are often of low methodological quality or poorly reported. There has been no rigorously evaluated, evidence based tool to assess the methodological quality of diagnostic studies. The primary objective of this ... read more

7. The probability of cost-effectiveness

By The probability of cost-effectiveness Anthony O'Hagan1 and John W Stevens2 1Centre for Bayesian Statistics in Health Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK 2Clinical Sciences, AstraZeneca R&D Charnwood, Loughborough, UK BMC Medical Research Methodology 2002, 2:5     doi:10.118... read more

8. On the probability of cost-effectiveness using data from randomized clinical trials

By On the probability of cost-effectiveness using data from randomized clinical trials Andrew R Willan1, 2 1Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, HSC-2C, McMaster University, 1200 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, L8N 3Z5, Canada 2The Centre for Evaluation of Medicines, St. Joseph's Hospital, Hamilton, ON, Canada ... read more

9. Assessing subgroup effects with binary data: can the use of different effect measures lead to different conclusions?

By Assessing subgroup effects with binary data: can the use of different effect measures lead to different conclusions? Ian R White and Diana Elbourne BMC Medical Research Methodology 2005, 5:15     doi:10.1186/1471-2288-5-15 Published   29 April 2005 Abstract (provisional)read more

10. Reporting quality of randomized trials in the diet and exercise literature for weight loss

By Reporting quality of randomized trials in the diet and exercise literature for weight loss Cheryl A Gibson1 , Erik P Kirk2 , James D LeCheminant3 , Bruce W Bailey Jr3 , Guoyuan Huang4 and Joseph E Donnelly3 1Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City, KS, ... read more

11. Recruitment of ethnic minority patients to a cardiac rehabilitation trial: The Birmingham Rehabilitation Uptake Maximisation (BRUM) study [ISRCTN72884

By Background: Concerns have been raised about low participation rates of people from minority ethnic groups in clinical trials. However, the evidence is unclear as many studies do not report the ethnicity of participants and there is insufficient information about reasons for ineligibility by ethnic group. Where there are data, there remains the key question as to whether ethnic minorities more lik... read more

12. Methodological bias in cluster randomised trials

By Methodological bias in cluster randomised trials Seokyung Hahn1 , Suezann Puffer2 , David J Torgerson2 and Judith Watson2 1Medical Research Collaborating Center, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 2nd Floor Cancer Research Institute Building, 28 Yongon Dong, Chongno Gu, Seoul 110-744, Korea 2Yo... read more

13. Use of re-randomized data in meta-analysis

By Background: Outcomes collected in randomized clinical trials are observations of random variables that should be independent and identically distributed. However, in some trials, the patients are randomized more than once thus violating both of these assumptions. The probability of an event is not always the same when a patient is re-randomized; there is probably a non-zero covariance coming from... read more