The Competing Objectives of Randomized Trials
- 30 October 1980
- journal article
- Published by Massachusetts Medical Society in New England Journal of Medicine
- Vol. 303 (18), 1059-1060
- https://doi.org/10.1056/nejm198010303031812
Abstract
The intervention trial of greatest benefit to patients satisfies three objectives: validity (its results are true), generalizability (its results are widely applicable), and efficiency (the trial is affordable and resources are left over for patient care and for other health research). The first objective, validity, has become a nonnegotiable demand; hence the ascendancy of the randomized trial.The quest for validity requires protection from a false conclusion of efficacy when none exists (the Type I error, the risk of which is described by alpha, the P value). An important review published in the Journal two years ago1 dramatized the high . . .Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Controversy in Counting and Attributing Events in Clinical TrialsNew England Journal of Medicine, 1979
- The Importance of Beta, the Type II Error and Sample Size in the Design and Interpretation of the Randomized Control TrialNew England Journal of Medicine, 1978