bias

‘Concerning’ lack of female-only medical trials in UK, say health experts

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17437199.2024.2367613 Selective outcome reporting in trials of behavioural health interventions in health psychology and behavioural medicine journals: a review Karen Matvienko-Sikar , Jen O'Shea , Stephen Kennedy , Siobhan D. Thomas , Kerry Avery ...

Abstract: Principal component analysis (PCA) is widely used to control for population structure in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Top principal components (PCs) typically reflect population structure, but challenges arise in deciding how many PCs are needed and ensuring that PCs do not...

This is more of a “my person experience” rant then a high quality discussion as I don’t have the energy for the latter right now, but here goes: Why do a chunk of published studies in ME/LC feel absolutely worthless? Why is it almost easy to find errors in published papers in this discipline...

I don't think we have an open discussion specifically on the problems of bias in academic research. I initially titled this "Bias in science", but really the problem is with academic research, too much of which makes no attempt at being scientific. And I don't mean interpretive dancing academia...

Emerging Subspecialties in Neurology: Women’s Neurology Hayley F. Thornton,, Sara C. LaHue, Riley Bove, Janet Waters, Mary A. O’Neal, Esther Bui The influence of sex and gender on neurologic disease has become increasingly recognized in science and medicine. This is evident across a woman’s...

Compelling evidence from meta-epidemiological studies demonstrates overestimation of effects in randomized trials that fail to optimize randomization and blind patients and outcome assessors [A number of authors are from Gordon Guyatt’s group at McMaster University in Canada] Objective To...

Bias, misleading information and lack of respect for alternative views have distorted perceptions of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and its treatment Abstract The PACE trial is one of the most recent studies evaluating cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise...

Catalogue of Bias About Bias enters health studies at all stages and often influences the magnitude and direction of results. To obtain the least biased information, researchers must acknowledge the potential presence of biases and take steps to avoid and minimise their effects. Equally, in...

Peters, S., Wearden, A., Morriss, R. et al. Challenges of nurse delivery of psychological interventions for long-term conditions in primary care: a qualitative exploration of the case of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalitis. Implementation Sci 6, 132 (2011)...

Bias was reduced in an open-label trial through the removal of subjective elements from the outcome definition Objective: To determine whether modifying an outcome definition to remove subjective elements reduced bias in a trial that could not use blinded outcome assessment. Study design and...

Abstract Background Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based intervention for severe fatigue. Changes in patients’ fatigue scores following CBT might reflect not only the intended relief in fatigue but also response shift, a change in the meaning of patients’ self-evaluation...

Abstract Objectives The aim of the study was to analyze adequacy of risk of bias (RoB) judgments for selective reporting in Cochrane systematic reviews. Study Design and Setting We extracted RoB assessments, including judgment (low, high, or unclear risk) and supporting comment from Cochrane...

This is an interesting editorial in the European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy: "Red for danger in systematic reviews?" by Andrew Moore The full article is available here: https://ejhp.bmj.com/content/ejhpharm/28/6/299.full.pdf

They have no idea how deep this goes. Small study hints that interference from bodies funding research into public-health issues such as nutrition and exercise might be more common than realized. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02242-x A survey of public-health researchers has...

This 2007 study from the Journal of Psychosomatic Research to my mind suggests that retrospective subjective symptom reporting in MUS is useless. People seem to report what they think they know about themselves (personal semantic memory) rather than events they remember (episodic memory). Hard...

Abstract The hypothesis of a Hierarchy of the Sciences with physical sciences at the top, social sciences at the bottom, and biological sciences in-between is nearly 200 years old. This order is intuitive and reflected in many features of academic life, but whether it reflects the “hardness” of...

Abstract Background: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are influenced by psychosocial factors, but it is unknown whether we can influence PROM scores by modifying the mindset of the patient. Purpose: We assessed whether priming affects scores on PROMs. Methods: In all, 168 patients...

(This is a reference to the discussion on bias due to a lack of blinding here.) Bull, L. (2007). Sunflower therapy for children with specific learning difficulties (dyslexia): A randomised, controlled trial. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 13(1), 15–24...

Abstract Control conditions are the primary methodology used to reduce threats to internal validity in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). This meta-analysis examined the effects of control arm design and implementation on outcomes in RCTs examining psychological treatments for depression. A...