Clinical equipoise and personal equipoise: two necessary ingredients for reducing bias in manual therapy trials
Authors:
- 24 February 2011
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy
- Vol. 19 (1) , 55-57
Abstract
Clinical and personal equipoise exists when a clinician has no good basis for a choice between two or more care options or when one is truly uncertain about the overall benefit or harm offered by the treatment to his/her patient. For most manual therapy trials, equipoise does not likely exist. Because of the nature of the intervention a lack of equipoise can lead to bias and may account for a portion of the 'effect' that has traditionally been assigned to the intervention. Although there are methodological mechanisms to reduce the risk of bias associated with a lack of equipoise, most of the manual therapy trials to date are likely guilty of this form of bias.Keywords
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