LO: Explain the role of medical research and evidence-based medicine in informing clinical practice and healthcare decision making

Medical research

• Better care for patients
• Better treatment decisions
• Prevention and public health
• Shapes guidelines and practice
• Understand where evidence originates
• Know when evidence may go wrong

Types of medical studies

• Descriptive
• Observational
• Qualitative
• Cohort
• Case control studies
• Randomised (RCTs)
• Population and epidemiological
• Systematic reviews and meta analyses

Meta-analysis

• Combine and analyse data from multiple individual studies on the same topic
• Gives a more powerful and precise estimate of the overall effect than a single study

Impact

• How to manage patients safer
• What type of research is needed to compare therapies
• RCTs
• Hard endpoints like death and quality of life
• PROMS - Patient Reported Outcome Measures
• Cost-effectiveness