XI. From Clinical Judgment to Case-control Design
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Keywords
Case-control studies, Clinical trial
Abstract
The case-control design, just as the historic cohort, is loaded with a series of potential biases resulting from reconstructing the facts once the outcome has occurred, in addition to biases generated by the selection of the control group. It is characterized by having a series of cases for which a comparative group (controls) is identified. That is, it goes from the outcome to the cause and, consequently, facts must be reconstructed in the opposite sense as to the way the causality phenomenon occurs. Nevertheless, architectural design will have to be borne in mind and in each section —baseline state, maneuver and outcome— those features necessary to demonstrate the effect of the maneuver will have to be considered, thus preventing an inadequate assembly and the susceptibility, performance and detection biases. Transfer bias can only be controlled by having a defined population, either based on general population or nested in a cohort. When a defined population is not available, this design is recommended only for rare diseases.
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