The more subjects the better in research?

Excerpt

In child and adolescent psychiatry, perhaps more so than in other medical specialties, there can sometimes be an uncomfortable gap between research and clinic. While scientific research is typically aimed at findings obtained from groups of children and adolescents, clinicians are committed to provide optimal assessment and treatment for individual patients and families. And it is true that it is not always straightforward to translate findings from research into clinical practice. For example, when a randomized controlled trial has demonstrated efficacy of a certain treatment for children with a particular disorder, this unfortunately does not guarantee that the treatment benefits each individual child with that disorder. Similarly, research findings related to causes of disorders may not always have relevance for the individual child. Some clinicians may even feel that each patient and family is unique and that group-based research findings offer them little for their clinical practice. …