EvidenceLib · Topic area
Clinical Research
Study design, trials, evidence synthesis and research methods. 98 evidence-grounded articles.
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T
Abbreviated Injury Scale
Classification system for assessing impact injury severity developed and published by the American Association for Automotive Medicine.
APACHE
An acronym for Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation, a scoring system using routinely collected data and providing an accurate, objective description for a broad range of intensive care unit admissions, measuring severit
Basic Reproduction Number
The expected number of new cases of an infection caused by an infected individual, amongst susceptible contacts only.
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
Telephone surveys are conducted to monitor prevalence of the major behavioral risks among adults associated with premature morbidity and mortality.
Birth Rate
The number of births in a given population per year or other unit of time.
Cardiometabolic Risk Factors
A cluster of personal behavior or lifestyle, environmental exposure, inborn or inherited conditions and characteristics, which, on the basis of epidemiological evidence, is known to be associated with cardiovascular diseases and T
Case-Control Studies
Comparisons that start with the identification of persons with the disease or outcome of interest and a control (comparison, referent) group without the disease or outcome of interest.
Cause of Death
Factors which produce cessation of all vital bodily functions.
Chemometrics
The use of statistical and mathematical methods to analyze chemical observations and phenomena, such as epidemiological analysis of spectroscopically identified bacteria or quantitative structure-activity relationship.
Child Mortality
Number of deaths of children between one year of age to 12 years of age in a given population.
Clinical Protocols
Precise and detailed plans for the study of a medical or biomedical problem and/or plans for a regimen of therapy.
Clinical Relevance
Criteria to determine whether a finding (e.g., clinical examination, lab test, imaging results) requires a medical intervention for meaningful improvement in outcome often to avoid overdiagnosis and/or overtreatment.
Cluster Analysis
A set of statistical methods used to group variables or observations into strongly inter-related subgroups.
Cohort Studies
Studies in which subsets of a defined population are identified.
Confidence Intervals
A range of values for a variable of interest, e.g., a rate, constructed so that this range has a specified probability of including the true value of the variable.
Contact Tracing
Identification of those persons (or animals) who have had such an association with an infected person, animal, or contaminated environment as to have had the opportunity to acquire the infection.
Control Groups
Groups that serve as a standard for comparison in experimental studies.
Cost of Illness
The personal cost of disease which may be economic, social, or psychological.
Cross-Sectional Studies
Studies in which the presence or absence of disease or other health-related variables are determined in each member of the study population or in a representative sample at one particular time.
Data Collection
Systematic gathering of data for a particular purpose from various sources, including questionnaires, interviews, observation, existing records, and electronic devices.
Death Certificates
Official records of individual deaths including the cause of death certified by a physician, and any other required identifying information.
Disability-Adjusted Life Years
It is the sum of years of life lost due to premature mortality and the number of years lived with disability, due to disease or health condition in a population.
Discriminant Analysis
A statistical analytic technique used with discrete dependent variables, concerned with separating sets of observed values and allocating new values.
Disease-Free Survival
Period after successful treatment in which there is no appearance of the symptoms or effects of the disease.
Drug Evaluation
Any process by which toxicity, metabolism, absorption, elimination, preferred route of administration, safe dosage range, etc., for a drug or group of drugs is determined through clinical assessment in humans or veterinary animals
Early Warning Score
Tool for bedside evaluation based on five physiological parameters: systolic pressure, pulse, respiratory rate, body temperature and AVPU (alert, voice, pain, unresponsive) score.
Electronic Health Records
Media that facilitate transportability of pertinent information concerning patient's illness across varied providers and geographic locations.
Epidemiologic Studies
Studies designed to examine associations, commonly, hypothesized causal relations.
Feasibility Studies
Studies to determine the advantages or disadvantages, practicability, or capability of accomplishing a projected plan, study, or project.
Fetal Mortality
Number of fetal deaths with stated or presumed gestation of 20 weeks or more in a given population.
Focus Groups
A method of data collection and a qualitative research tool in which a small group of individuals are brought together and allowed to interact in a discussion of their opinions about topics, issues, or questions.
Follow-Up Studies
Studies in which individuals or populations are followed to assess the outcome of exposures, procedures, or effects of a characteristic, e.g., occurrence of disease.
Geriatric Assessment
Evaluation of the level of physical, physiological, or mental functioning in the older population group.
Glasgow Coma Scale
A scale that assesses the response to stimuli in patients with craniocerebral injuries.
Glasgow Outcome Scale
A scale that assesses the outcome of serious craniocerebral injuries, based on the level of regained social functioning.
Global Burden of Disease
Use of various metrics to measure death and loss of health due to diseases, injuries and risk factors for all regions of the world.
Guideline Adherence
Conformity in fulfilling or following official, recognized, or institutional requirements, guidelines, recommendations, protocols, pathways, or other standards.
Health Surveys
A systematic collection of factual data pertaining to health and disease in a human population within a given geographic area.
Hospital Mortality
A vital statistic measuring or recording the rate of death from any cause in hospitalized populations.
Incidence
The number of new cases of a given disease during a given period in a specified population.
Infant Mortality
Postnatal deaths from birth to 365 days after birth in a given population.
Injury Severity Score
An anatomic severity scale based on the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) and developed specifically to score multiple traumatic injuries.
Intention to Treat Analysis
Strategy for the analysis of randomized controlled trials AS topic that compares patients in the groups to which they were originally randomly assigned.
Interrupted Time Series Analysis
A study that uses observations at multiple time points before and after an intervention (the interruption), in an attempt to detect whether the intervention has had an effect significantly greater than any underlying trend over ti
Karnofsky Performance Status
A performance measure for rating the ability of a person to perform usual activities, evaluating a patient's progress after a therapeutic procedure, and determining a patient's suitability for therapy.
Latent Class Analysis
A statistical algorithm used to analyze clusters of observed variables by constructing categorical unobserved or latent segment based on weighted analysis and the average probabilities.
Life Expectancy
Based on known statistical data, the number of years which any person of a given age may reasonably be expected to live.
Life Tables
Summarizing techniques used to describe the pattern of mortality and survival in populations.
Limit of Detection
Concentration or quantity that is derived from the smallest measure that can be detected with reasonable certainty for a given analytical procedure.
Linear Models
Statistical models in which the value of a parameter for a given value of a factor is assumed to be equal to a + bx, where a and b are constants.
Logistic Models
Statistical models which describe the relationship between a qualitative dependent variable (that is, one which can take only certain discrete values, such as the presence or absence of a disease) and an independent variable.
Longitudinal Studies
Studies in which variables relating to an individual or group of individuals are assessed over a period of time.
Lost to Follow-Up
Study subjects in cohort studies whose outcomes are unknown e.g., because they could not or did not wish to attend follow-up visits.(from Dictionary of Epidemiology, 5th ed.).
Mass Screening
Organized periodic procedures performed on large groups of people for the purpose of detecting disease.
Mediation Analysis
A type of statistical analysis used to understand, clarify, and explain the relationship and pathway between a presumed cause (an independent variable) and effect (dependent variable) with respect to causal links (mediating variab
Mendelian Randomization Analysis
The use of the genetic variation of known functions or phenotypes to correlate the causal effects of those functions or phenotypes with a disease outcome.
Monte Carlo Method
In statistics, a technique for numerically approximating the solution of a mathematical problem by studying the distribution of some random variable, often generated by a computer.
Morbidity
The proportion of patients with a particular disease during a given year per given unit of population.
Multivariate Analysis
A set of techniques used when variation in several variables are studied simultaneously.
Neonatal Screening
The identification of selected parameters in newborn infants by various tests, examinations, or other procedures.
Nomograms
Graphical representation of a statistical model containing scales for calculating the prognostic weight of a value for each individual variable.
Odds Ratio
The ratio of two odds.
Patient Health Questionnaire
A self-administered version of the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (prime-md), a diagnostic tool containing modules on multiple mental health disorders including anxiety, alcohol, eating, and somatoform modules.
Patient Reported Outcome Measures
Assessment of the quality and effectiveness of health care as measured and directly reported by the patient.
Patient Satisfaction
The degree to which the individual regards the health care service or product or the manner in which it is delivered by the provider as useful, effective, or beneficial.
Patient Selection
Criteria and standards used for the determination of the appropriateness of the inclusion of patients with specific conditions in proposed treatment plans and the criteria used for the inclusion of subjects in various clinical tri
Perinatal Mortality
Deaths occurring from the 28th week of gestation to the 28th day after birth in a given population.
Pharmacovigilance
The detection of long and short term side effects of conventional and traditional medicines through research, data mining, monitoring, and evaluation of healthcare information obtained from healthcare providers and patients.
Pregnancy Rate
The ratio of the number of conceptions (conception) including live birth; stillbirth; and fetal losses, to the mean number of females of reproductive age in a population during a set time period.
Principal Component Analysis
Mathematical procedure that transforms a number of possibly correlated variables into a smaller number of uncorrelated variables called principal components.
Program Evaluation
Studies designed to assess the efficacy of programs.
Progression-Free Survival
Length of time during and after the treatment of a disease, such as cancer, that a patient lives with the disease but the disease does not get worse.
Proportional Hazards Models
Statistical models used in survival analysis that assert that the effect of the study factors on the hazard rate in the study population is multiplicative and does not change over time.
Prospective Studies
Observation of a population for a sufficient number of persons over a sufficient number of years to generate incidence or mortality rates subsequent to the selection of the study group.
Protective Factors
An aspect of personal behavior or lifestyle, environmental exposure, or inborn or inherited characteristic, which, on the basis of epidemiologic evidence, is known to be associated with prevention or mitigation of a health-related
Public Health Surveillance
The ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health-related data with the purpose of preventing or controlling disease or injury, or of identifying unusual events of public health importance, followed by the
Quality-Adjusted Life Years
A measurement index derived from a modification of standard life-table procedures and designed to take account of the quality as well as the duration of survival.
Random Allocation
A process involving chance used in therapeutic trials or other research endeavor for allocating experimental subjects, human or animal, between treatment and control groups, or among treatment groups.
Registries
The systems and processes involved in the establishment, support, management, and operation of registers, e.g., disease registers.
Regression Analysis
Procedures for finding the mathematical function which best describes the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.
Reproducibility of Results
The statistical reproducibility of measurements (often in a clinical context), including the testing of instrumentation or techniques to obtain reproducible results.
Research Design
A plan for collecting and utilizing data so that desired information can be obtained with sufficient precision or so that an hypothesis can be tested properly.
Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors
An internationally recognized set of published rules used for evaluation of cancer treatment that define when tumors found in cancer patients improve, worsen, or remain stable during treatment.
Retrospective Studies
Studies used to test etiologic hypotheses in which inferences about an exposure to putative causal factors are derived from data relating to characteristics of persons under study or to events or experiences in their past.
Risk Adjustment
The use of severity-of-illness measures, such as age, to estimate the risk (measurable or predictable chance of loss, injury or death) to which a patient is subject before receiving some health care intervention.
Risk Assessment
The qualitative or quantitative estimation of the likelihood of adverse effects that may result from exposure to specified health hazards or from the absence of beneficial influences.
Risk Factors
An aspect of personal behavior or lifestyle, environmental exposure, inborn or inherited characteristic, which, based on epidemiological evidence, is known to be associated with a health-related condition considered important to p
ROC Curve
A graphic means for assessing the ability of a screening test to discriminate between healthy and diseased persons; may also be used in other studies, e.g., distinguishing stimuli responses as to a faint stimuli or nonstimuli.
Sample Size
The number of units (persons, animals, patients, specified circumstances, etc.) in a population to be studied.
Sensitivity and Specificity
Binary classification measures to assess test results.
Sentinel Surveillance
Monitoring of rate of occurrence of specific conditions to assess the stability or change in health levels of a population.
Spatial Analysis
Investigative techniques which measure the topological, geometric, and or geographic properties of the entities studied.
Survival Analysis
A class of statistical procedures for estimating the survival function (function of time, starting with a population 100% well at a given time and providing the percentage of the population still well at later times).
Survival Rate
The proportion of survivors in a group, e.g., of patients, studied and followed over a period, or the proportion of persons in a specified group alive at the beginning of a time interval who survive to the end of the interval.
Sustained Virologic Response
The continuous, long-term suppression of viral load, generally to undetectable levels, as the result of treatment with antiviral agents.
Symptom Burden
The subjective, quantifiable prevalence, frequency, and severity of symptoms placing a physiologic burden on patients and producing multiple negative, physical, and emotional patient responses.
Treatment Failure
A measure of the quality of health care by assessment of unsuccessful results of management and procedures used in combating disease, in individual cases or series.
Treatment Outcome
Evaluation undertaken to assess the results or consequences of management and procedures used in combating disease in order to determine the efficacy, effectiveness, safety, and practicability of these interventions in individual