Despite acting with the best of intentions, health professionals have sometimes done more harm than good to the patients who have looked to them for help. Some of this suffering can be reduced by ensuring that fair tests are done to address uncertainties about the effects of treatments.
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Biases in tests of treatments are those influences and factors that can lead to conclusions about treatment effects that are systematically different from the truth.
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When treatments are compared, any differences in outcome events may simply reflect the play of chance.
Increasing the number of events studied in research reduces the likelihood of being misled in this way.
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The interests of patients can be served by: improving reports of research, preparing and updating systematic reviews of reliable studies, and using these to inform decisions about treatment.
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