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01-03-2018 | Brief Communication

Randomized Controlled Trials or Observational Studies? It Depends on the Research Question

Author: John B. Dixon

Published in: Obesity Surgery | Issue 3/2018

Excerpt

The fundamentals of clinical research require that a study is designed to answer an important research question. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) play a core role in assessing the safety and efficacy of health care interventions or for comparing interventions. RCTs are designed to reduce bias and variability and therefore examine the true effect of an intervention. Reducing bias increases the reliability, and reducing variability improves the precision of the outcome. Groups must be alike and only vary in the intervention they receive. RCTs and even meta-analyses of RCT results can be quite inappropriate when trying to answer other research questions. …

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Rubino F, Nathan DM, Eckel RH, et al. Metabolic surgery in the treatment algorithm for type 2 diabetes: a joint statement by international diabetes organizations. Diabetes Care. 2016;39(6):861–77. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc16-0236.CrossRefPubMed

Wu GZ, Cai B, Yu F, et al. Meta-analysis of bariatric surgery versus non-surgical treatment for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Oncotarget. 2016;7(52):87511–22.PubMedPubMedCentral

Title: Randomized Controlled Trials or Observational Studies? It Depends on the Research Question
Author: John B. Dixon
Publication date: 01-03-2018
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Obesity Surgery / Issue 3/2018
Print ISSN: 0960-8923
Electronic ISSN: 1708-0428
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-017-3051-5

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Randomized Controlled Trials or Observational Studies? It Depends on the Research Question

Excerpt

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Excerpt

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