Control of confounding in the assessment of medical technology

Separation of the effects of extraneous variables from the effects of a factor under study (often termed control of confounding) is one of the key prerequisites for validly estimating the magnitude of the study factor's effects. Because of the phenomenon of confounding by indication, confoundin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of epidemiology Vol. 9; no. 4; p. 361
Main Authors Greenland, S, Neutra, R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England 01.12.1980
Subjects
Cesarean Section
Decision Theory
Female
Fetal Monitoring
Humans
Obstetric Labor Complications - diagnosis
Pregnancy
Research Design
Risk
Technology Assessment, Biomedical - standards
Online AccessGet more information
ISSN0300-5771
DOI10.1093/ije/9.4.361

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Summary:Separation of the effects of extraneous variables from the effects of a factor under study (often termed control of confounding) is one of the key prerequisites for validly estimating the magnitude of the study factor's effects. Because of the phenomenon of confounding by indication, confounding of effects of different factors is a common problem in the assessment of medical technology. We give several examples illustrating that the decision of whether a recorded variable is a confounder in a data-set must be decided on the basis of subject-matter knowledge and clinical judgement. There is no alternative to use of such judgement; statistical selection procedures based on significant tests, such as stepwise regression, can be particularly misleading.
ISSN:0300-5771
DOI:10.1093/ije/9.4.361