Question

A doctor wants to test the effectiveness of a new treatment for a particular illness. For the study, 200 people are randomly divided into two groups, where 100 people are given a placebo and the other 100 are given the new drug. Neither the researchers nor the patients know which group the patients are in since the drug and placebo had identical appearance and packaging. With the exception of the drug, all patients experienced the same diet and amount of exercise. After one week, the doctor measures the amount of improvement in symptoms in the patients. Use this information for exercises 1–4. 1.

(2 points) What kind of study is this? Briefly explain. 2.

(2 points) What are the treatment and control groups in this study? 3.

(2 points) Does this study make use of blocking? If so, what is the blocking variable? 4.

(2 points) Can the results of this study be used to establish a causal relationship between the new drug and improvement in symptoms? Briefly explain.

Answer 1

1)The current study is called a placebo controlled study. In this kind of study, a group of subjects receive a drug for treatment and the other group gets a placebo drug which is designed to have no impact.

2)Treatment group: The group that is given the actual drug to be tested

Control Group: The group that is given a placebo drug

3)Yes the current experiment uses blocks by arranging the placebo and treatment group in two blocks and monitoring them.

4)The results as such cannot be for sure be declared to be good to use. However, a significance of the treatment group over the control group does provide an information on the significance of the relationship. One might have to perform various other tests to arrive at a cnclusion.