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FUNDAMENTALS OF MEDICAL RESEARCH: 
For emerging researchers

Lap Lambert, Germany

List price Euro 79.00, US$97.00
Available from online bookstores around the world
 





CONTENTS

1 Fundamentals of Medical Research

1.1 Medical Research and this Book

1.1.1 Fundamentals of Medical Research

1.1.2 SCOPE OF THIS BOOK

1.2 STEPS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH

1.2.1 PREINVESTIGATION STEPS

1.2.2 INVESTIGATION STEPS

1.2.3 POSTINVESTIGATION STEPS

1.3 ETHICS OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

1.3.1 ETHICS FOR ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

1.3.2 ETHICS FOR RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN SUBJECTS

1.3.3 PLEASURES AND FRUSTRATIONS OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

1.4 RESEARCH PROTOCOL

1.4.1 THE PROBLEM, OBJECTIVES, AND HYPOTHESES

1.4.2 PROTOCOL CONTENT

REFERENCES

2 Medical Uncertainties in Research

2.1 VARIETIES OF UNCERTAINTIES IN MEDICAL RESEARCH

2.1.1 SOURCES OF UNCERTAINTIES

2.1.2 ALEATORY UNCERTAINTIES

2.1.3 EPISTEMIC UNCERTAINTIES

2.2 CONTROLLING SOME EPISTEMIC UNCERTAINTIES

2.2.1 CLINIMETRICS

2.2.2 OTHER TOOLS TO CONTROL EPISTEMIC UNCERTAINTIES

2.3 ASSESSING UNCERTAINTIES

2.3.1 THE ROLE OF BIOSTATISTICS

2.3.2 THE CONCEPTS OF RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

2.3.3 VALIDITY OF RESEARCH TOOLS

REFERENCES

3 Review of Literature and Data

3.1 SEARCHING MEDICAL LITERATURE

3.1.1 LIBRARY CONSULTATION

3.1.2 ELECTRONIC RESOURCES

3.2 CRITIQUE OF A MEDICAL REPORT

3.2.1 ASSESS QUALITY OF PUBLICATIONS

3.2.2 ASSESS THE CONTENTS

3.3 SEARCHING THE EXISTING DATA

3.3.1 RECORDS OF PATIENTS

3.3.2 REPORTS

3.3.3 CAUTIONS IN USING SECONDARY DATA

REFERENCES

4 Clinical Trials

4.1 BASICS OF CLINICAL TRIALS

4.1.1 PHASES OF A CLINICAL TRIAL

4.1.2 RANDOMISATION

4.1.3 CONTROL GROUP IN A CLINICAL TRIAL

4.1.4 SUPERIORITY, EQUIVALENCE AND NONINFERIORITY TRIALS

4.1.5 SOME SPECIAL DESIGNS FOR CLINICAL TRIALS

4.1.6 PROPHYLACTIC AND FIELD TRIALS

4.2 VALIDITY OF A CLINICAL TRIAL

4.2.1 SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS

4.2.2 SIZE OF THE TRIAL

4.2.3 BLINDING AND MASKING

4.2.4 COMPLIANCE

4.2.5 CHOOSING A DESIGN FOR A TRIAL

4.2.6 REPORTING RESULTS OF A TRIAL

4.3 VARIETIES OF BIAS TO GUARD AGAINST

REFERENCES

5 Designs for Epidemiological Research and Medical Experiments

5.1 OVERVIEW OF DESIGNS FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH

5.1.1 DESCRIPTIVE STUDY

5.1.2 ANALYTICAL STUDY

5.2 OBSERVATIONAL (EPIDEMIOLOGICAL) STUDIES

5.2.1 PROSPECTIVE STUDY

5.2.2 RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

5.2.3 CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

5.2.4 COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE OF PROSPECTIVE, RETROSPECTIVE, AND CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDIES

5.3 DESIGNS OF LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

5.3.1 LABORATORY AND ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS

5.3.2 FEATURES OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS

5.3.3 ONE-WAY, TWO-WAY AND FACTORIAL DESIGNS

REFERENCES

6 Sampling and Sample Size

6.1 PURPOSIVE AND RANDOM SAMPLING

6.1.1 PURPOSIVE SAMPLING (NONRANDOM SAMPLING)

6.1.2 RANDOM SAMPLING

6.2 SAMPLING FOR DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES

6.2.1 SAMPLING FOR SMALLER STUDIES

6.2.2 SAMPLING FOR LARGE STUDIES

6.2.3 OTHER METHODS OF RANDOM SAMPLING

6.3 SAMPLING FOR ANALYTICAL STUDIES

6.3.1 SAMPLING METHODS IN OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES

6.3.2 SAMPLING METHODS IN EXPERIMENTS AND TRIALS

6.4 SAMPLING AND NONSAMPLING ERRORS

6.4.1 SAMPLING ERRORS

6.4.2 NONSAMPLING ERRORS

6.5 DETERMINATION OF SAMPLE SIZE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH

6.5.1 SAMPLE SIZE FOR DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES (SAMPLE SURVEYS)

6.5.2 SAMPLE SIZE FOR ANALYTICAL STUDIES

REFERENCES

Annex 1

 7 Data Management

7.1 SOURCES OF MEDICAL DATA

7.1.1 SECONDARY AND PRIMARY SOURCES OF DATA

7.1.2 INTERVIEW, EXAMINATION, AND INVESTIGATION

7.1.3 QUESTIONNAIRE, SCHEDULE, AND PROFORMA

7.2 QUALITY OF DATA

7.2.1 RELIABILITY, VALIDITY AND ACCURACY OF DATA

7.2.2 OTHER ASPECTS OF DATA QUALITY

7.3 TYPES OF MEASUREMENTS

7.3.1 QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENTS

7.3.2 QUALITATIVE MEASUREMENTS

7.3.3 INDICATORS, INDEXES, AND SCORES

7.4 COLLATION OF DATA

7.4.1 TABLES

7.4.2 GRAPHS AND DIAGRAMS

7.4.3 STANDARDISATION AND OTHER ADJUSTMENTS FOR DATA COMPARABILITY

REFERENCES

 8 Assessment of Health and Disease in Research

8.1 STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MEDICAL MEASUREMENTS

8.1.1 SHAPE OF A DISTRIBUTION

8.1.2 REPRESENTATIVE SUMMARY MEASURES FOR QUANTITATIVE DATA

8.1.3 SUMMARY MEASURES FOR QUALITATIVE DATA

8.2 NORMAL VS. ABNORMAL LEVELS

8.2.1 VARIATION IN MEANING OF NORMAL

8.2.2 IMPLICATIONS OF STATISTICAL NORMALS

8.3 ASSESSMENT OF MEDICAL FACTORS

8.3.1 INTRICACIES OF ASSESSMENT

8.3.2 TYPES OF MEDICAL FACTORS

8.3.3 DISEASE SPECTRUM

8.4 ASSESSMENT OF MORTALITY AND DURATION OF SURVIVAL

8.4.1 ASSESSMENT OF MORTALITY

8.4.2 DURATION OF SURVIVAL

8.4.3 QUALITY OF LIFE

8.5 EPIDEMIOLOGICAL INDICES

8.5.1 RATE, RISK, HAZARD, AND ODDS

8.5.2 INCIDENCE AND PREVALENCE

8.5.3 SENSITIVITY, SPECIFICITY, AND PREDICTIVITIES

8.5.4 DIAGNOSTIC THRESHOLDS AND COMPARISON OF TESTS

REFERENCES

 9 Statistical Evaluation

 9.1 RELATIVE RISK, ODDS RATIO, AND ATTRIBUTABLE RISK

9.1.1 RELATIVE RISK AND ODDS RATIO

9.1.2 ATTRIBUTABLE RISK AND OTHER KINDS OF RISK MEASURES

9.2 STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

9.2.1 STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE, P-VALUE, AND POWER

9.2.2 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

9.3 TESTS FOR STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

9.3.1 SOME STATISTICAL TESTS FOR QUALITATIVE DATA

9.3.2 SOME STATISTICAL TESTS FOR QUANTITATIVE DATA

9.4 CONFIDENCE INTERVALS FOR MEDICAL PARAMETERS

9.4.1 CI FOR PROPORTION AND MEAN

9.4.2 CI FOR RELATIVE RISK (RR) AND ODDS RATIO (OR)

9.5 RELATIONSHIPS

9.5.1 GENERAL FEATURES OF A REGRESSION

9.5.2 LOGISTIC REGRESSION FOR MEDICAL FACTORS

9.5.3 LINEAR AND COX REGRESSION

REFERENCES

 10 Credibility of Research Results

 10.1 ROBUSTNESS OF RESEARCH RESULTS

10.1.1 EXTERNAL VALIDATION

10.1.2 UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS

10.1.3 SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS

10.2 STATISTICAL FALLACIES

10.2.1 CHERRY-PICKING THE STATISTICAL INDICES

10.2.2 FALLACIOUS INTERPRETATION

10.3 CAUSE-EFFECT RELATIONSHIP IN MEDICAL RESEARCH

10.3.1 EVIDENCE OF CAUSE-EFFECT

10.3.2 ASSESSMENT OF CAUSE-EFFECT IN RESEARCH

10.3.3 MULTIFACTORIAL CAUSATION

REFERENCES

 11 Scientific Communication

11.1 WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

11.1.1 TEXT STYLE

11.1.2 TABLES

11.1.3 ILLUSTRATIONS

11.2 ORAL PRESENTATION

11.2.1 ESSENTIALS OF EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION

11.2.2 PRESENTATION AIDS

11.3 POSTER PRESENTATION

11.3.1 FORMAT AND CONTENT OF A POSTER

11.3.2 LAYOUT OF A POSTER

11.4 REPORTING ETHICS

11.4.1 DUPLICATION

11.4.2 CONFLICTS

11.4.3 CONFIDENTIALITY AND MISREPORTING

11.4.4 THE KEY IS COMMON SENSE

REFERENCES

12 Manuscript Preparation and Thesis Writing

12.1 FEATURES OF A MANUSCRIPT

12.1.1 ESSENTIAL FEATURES

12.1.2 THESES AND DISSERTATIONS

12.2 PRELIMINARIES OF A MANUSCRIPT

12.2.1 TITLE

12.2.2 AUTHORSHIP CREDITS

12.2.3 KEYWORDS

12.2.4 ABSTRACT/SUMMARY

12.3 MAIN BODY OF THE MANUSCRIPT

12.3.1 INTRODUCTION

12.3.2 METHODS

12.3.3 RESULTS

12.3.4 DISCUSSION

12.4 END FEATURES OF A MANUSCRIPT

12.4.1 ACKNOWLEDGMENT ETHICS

12.4.2 KEY MESSAGES

12.4.3 REFERENCES

12.4.4 APPENDIX

REFERENCES




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