Tutorial 2

Question 1

What are examples of:

1. Level 1 evidence
2. Level 2 evidence
3. Level 3 evidence
4. Level 4 evidence
5. Level 5 evidence
6. Level 6 evidence
7. Level 7 evidence

Answer 1

• Evidence is information of facts obtained systematically using valid methods

1. Systematic review of all relevant RCTs (3 or more good quality)
2. Evidence from one good quality RCT
3. Evidence from well-designed controlled trial without randomisation
4. Evidence from well-designed case-control cohort studies
5. Evidence from systematic reviews of descriptive and qualitiative studies
6. Evidence from single descriptive of qualitative study
7. Evidence from authority/expert committee reports

Question 2

What are 5 principles for researching barriers to change?

Answer 2

1. Acceptibility
2. Accuracy
3. Generalisability
4. Reliability
5. Cost-effectiveness

Question 3

What is research translation?

Answer 3

• The process by which knowledge is translated into changes in practice or policy
• Needed as research does not always lead to implementation or better health outcomes
• Reduce waste in research

Question 4

What is translational research?

Answer 4

• Research that studies how to best translate research into practice or policy

Question 5

What is reliability?

Answer 5

• The consistency and trustworthiness of a test measurement

Question 6

What is precision?

Answer 6

• Measuring device reliably gives results with little variation

Question 7

What is validity?

Answer 7

• Refers to whether the experiment/test measures what it is meant to measure

Question 8

What is content validity?

Answer 8

• Established by reviewing the content of assessment procedures
• Face-validity: does the test measure what it is supposed to measure?
• Content scope validity: does the test measure the breadth/depth of an intended construct

Question 9

Which is criterion validity?

Answer 9

• Established by reviewing performance of measurements when compared to an external standard
• Concurrent validity = compares to gold standard
• Predictive validity = do the test results successfully predict an outcome
• Known/extreme groups validity = does the test differentiate between groups who should score high or low

Question 10

What is responsiveness?

Answer 10

• Refers to how sensitive the test is to real change

Question 11

What are some registered health professions?

Answer 11

• Doctors
• Registered nurses
• Pharamacists
• Physiotherapists
• OTs
• Optometrist
• Chiropracter
• Traditional Chinese medicine/acuptuncturist

Question 12

What are some substances regulated by the TGA?

Answer 12

• Prescription medicines
• Vaccines
• Sunscreens
• Vitamins and minerals
• Medical devices
• Blood and blood products

Question 13

What are means of improving validity of interviews?

Answer 13

• Triangulatioon
• Saturation
• Member checking e.g. Delphi method
• Self-disclosure

Question 14

What is a non-inferiority trial and why are they done?

Answer 14

• A non-inferiority trial aims to prove that a drug/dose renders outcomes that are not worse than the gold standard treatment
• Reasons include:
• Not ethical to test against placebo
• New drug has better performance of secondary end points/cheaper/better compliance

Question 15

What is an equivalence trial and why are they done?

Answer 15

• Aims to prove that a new drug is no worse, or better than the existing drug
• Needs establishment of equivelant boundary first

Question 16

How missing data dealt with?

Answer 16

1. Listwise deletion:
   - Only analyse cases with available data
   - Simple
   - Reduces n and thus statistical power
2. Pairwise deletion:
   - Analyse with all cases in which vairables are present
   - Cant compare analyses because the same is different each time
3. Single imputation methods:
   - Mean/mode substitiution
   - Dummy variable adjustment
   - Regressive imputaiton (replace missing value with predicted value)
4. Multiple imputation process:
   - Data is filled in with imputated values using a specified regression model