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Making Decisions Based on Group Designs and Meta-analysis

B Norton, MHS, PT, is Instructor and Coordinator, Applied Kinesiology Laboratories, Program in Physical Therapy, Washington University Medical School, 660 S Euclid Ave, PO Box 8083, St Louis, MO 63110 (USA).
M Strube, PhD, is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Washington University, St Louis, MO 63130.

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

The need to apply formal decision-making theories in clinical practice is becoming more apparent. One of the major decisions with which clinicians are faced constantly is when to modify their practice on the basis of findings reported in the research literature. Ideally, such decisions should be based on both the credibility of the research and its applicability to the clinician's situation. This article briefly summarizes four types of research design and provides guidelines for assessing the credibility of studies based on them. In addition, this article provides a brief introduction to meta-analysis, a technique for assessing the collective results of multiple studies.

Sources of Information

Before we can decide what information to include in our decision-making processes, we must identify our sources of information. Two obvious sources are our own past experience and that of our colleagues....

Key Words: Clinical protocols • Decision making • Decision theory • Research • Research design

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