"Yoga, Depression, & Clinical Trial Critique 101" by Hilda Bastian

Yoga, Depression, & Clinical Trial Critique 101
Posted August 12, 2018 by Hilda Bastian in Evidence, Health

http://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/2018/08/12/yoga-depression-clinical-trial-critique-101/

Not specifically about ME, but I thought it might be of interest to some people who are interested in learning how to critique randomised controlled trials of any therapies for any condition.

 

Brilliant article. Makes things easy to understand.
Something like this should be on every undergraduate course .

 

"It’s even risky to rely on what the authors of a trial say previous research has shown – they may not have done enough research to know, or they may be quoting studies selectively. Even when they quote a systematic review of the literature, it could be out of date, or not be thorough itself."

see also Cochrane assessing risk of bias tool

"It is important to assess risk of bias in all studies in a review irrespective of the anticipated variability in either the results or the validity of the included studies.

For instance, the results may be consistent among studies but all the studies may be flawed. In this case, the review’s conclusions should not be as strong as if a series of rigorous studies yielded consistent results about an intervention’s effect.

In a Cochrane review, this appraisal process is described as the assessment of risk of bias in included studies."

https://methods.cochrane.org/bias/a...cluded-studies#The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool