Quasi-experimental study designs series - paper 5: Classifying studies evaluating effects of health care or health system interventions - a taxonomy without labels

Barnaby Reeves, George Wells, Hugh Waddington

Research output: Contribution to journalEditorial (Academic Journal)

113 Citations (Scopus)
358 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study was to extend a previously published checklist of study design features to include study designs often used by health systems researchers and economists. Our intention is to help review authors in any field to set eligibility criteria for studies to include in a systematic review that relate directly to the intrinsic strength of the studies in inferring causality. We also seek to clarify key equivalences and differences in terminology used by different research communities.
Study design and setting: expert consensus meeting.
Results: The checklist comprises seven questions, each with a list of response items, addressing: clustering of an intervention as an aspect of allocation or due to the intrinsic nature of the delivery of the intervention; for whom, and when, outcome data are available; how the intervention effect was estimated; the principle underlying control for confounding; how groups were formed; the features of a study carried out after it was designed; the variables measured before intervention.
Conclusion: The checklist clarifies the basis of credible quasi-experimental studies, reconciling different terminology used in different fields of investigation and facilitating communications across research communities. By applying the checklist, review authors’ attention is also directed to the assumptions underpinning the methods for inferring causality.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)30-42
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Clinical Epidemiology
Volume89
Early online date25 Mar 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2017

Research Groups and Themes

  • BTC (Bristol Trials Centre)

Keywords

  • health care
  • health system
  • evaluation
  • study design
  • quasi-experimental
  • nonrandomized

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