Health Research Methods: Experimental Studies

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts related to experimental studies and health research methods.

Experimental Study

A research design used to assess causality by manipulating one or more independent variables.

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)

An experiment where participants are randomly assigned to an intervention group and a control group to assess treatment effects.

Blinding (Masking)

A method used in experiments to prevent participants and/or researchers from knowing which group participants are assigned to.

Placebo

An inactive substance or treatment designed to resemble an active treatment to test the efficacy of the active treatment.

Hawthorne Effect

A change in behavior that occurs when individuals know they are being observed.

Equivalence Trial

A type of experimental study that aims to demonstrate that a new intervention is as good as a comparison.

Superiority Trial

A trial intended to show that a new intervention is better than a comparison intervention.

Efficacy

A measure of the success of an intervention calculated based on the proportion of individuals experiencing an unfavorable outcome in the control group.

Number Needed to Treat (NNT)

The number of people who need to receive a treatment to prevent an unfavorable outcome in one individual.

Ethical Considerations

Factors that must be addressed to ensure participants' safety and rights during experimental research.

Crossover Design

A design where participants receive both the active intervention and control in a sequential manner.

Observer Bias

A type of information bias that occurs when an observer evaluates participants differently based on their group membership.

Adverse Reaction

A negative side effect of a medication or treatment that may occur during a study.

Randomization

The process of assigning participants to different groups using a chance method to minimize bias.

Ecological Study

A study that uses population-level data to examine associations between characteristics.

Correlation

A statistical measure of the degree to which changes in one variable predict changes in another variable.

Age Standardization

A method used to compare health statistics across populations with different age structures.

Sensitivity

The proportion of true positives accurately identified by a screening test.

Specificity

The proportion of true negatives accurately identified by a screening test.

Effect Size

A measure of the strength of a phenomenon that quantifies the size of the difference between two groups.