Experimental epidemiology

Book section

Authors: Geddes, J

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Host title: Textbook in Psychiatric Epidemiology: Third Edition
• Pages: 243-261
• Publication date: 2011-04-19
• DOI: 10.1002/9780470976739.ch15
• ISBN: 9780470694671
• Keywords: Observational studies of drug therapies - propensity score matching increasingly used; Optimal design of randomised control trial - systematic and random error, limiting effects; Psychiatry, observational evidence - causal association between events occurring perinatally, and development of schizophrenia; Commonly used experimental design - assessing effects of treatments, the randomised controlled trial (RCT); Systematic error, or bias - undermining internal validity of trial, producing bias; Relationship between confidence, signal to noise ratio and sample size in randomised controlled trials; Advantages and disadvantages of RCTs; Seven main ways - trying to deal with confounding; Limitations of non-randomised evidence - non-randomised evidence, being unclear; Experimental epidemiology cause and effect in psychiatric research