Ateneo - UPO

Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine (EBM), with focus on statistical methods and study design

Reading papers provided

Knowledge of the main methods for experimental study in medicine and meta-analyzes. Understanding of the statistical aspects related to the analysis of survival and the conduct of meta-analyses

The exam of “Quantitative Science” should be passed as required by the didactic regulations of the medical course

Lectures with the aid of power point slides and exercises concerning the evaluation of the conduct and results of studies deriving from scientific articles relating to controlled and randomized clinical trials and meta-analysis and evaluation of the quality of the studies

The material used in class will be made available on the DIR platform
Students with disabilities, DSA, BES, once they have contacted the University Staff, can contact the teacher in charge of the course in relation to the declination of the exam methods, regarding the teaching aspects.

The exam consists of 10 multiple choice questions relating to the content of a scientific article that will be sent to students the afternoon before the exam and to the program of the "Statistics for EBM" module.
Each correct question will be assigned a score of 0.5. The score obtained will contribute to the overall grade of the Hygiene and Public Health exam up to 5 points.

Characteristics of randomized controlled trial (RCT)
Between and within patients study designs
Randomization methods
Sample size
Systematic errors
Measurements of association and impact
Basics of survival analysis
Real word evidence vs RCT
Bibliographic search
Study quality assessment
Meta-analyses:
Types of literature review
Definition of the objective of the study
Literature search
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Data collection
Statistical analysis, fixed and random effects models, assessment of heterogeneity between studies
Sensitivity analysis

Knowledge:
At the end of the course, students will know:
i) the main features of controlled and randomized clinical trials
ii) the main statistical methods for the analysis of studies from controlled and randomized clinical trials
iii) the scales useful for assessing the quality of a study
iv) the methods of conducting a meta-analytic study
Skills:
Students will be able to:
i) include conducting a controlled and randomized clinical trial
ii) carry out a search of the scientific literature regarding a specific clinical question and evaluate the quality of the articles found and the consequent reliability of the results
iii) understand how a meta-analytic study is performed
Transversal skills:
Understand and critically evaluate the content of a scientific article in order to guide clinical practice, being able to choose between patient care options.