Evidence in Medicine

<p>High-quality evidence is the foundation for effective treatment in medicine. As the vast amount of published medical evidence continues to grow, concerns about the quality of many studies are increasing.&nbsp;<i>Evidence in Medicine</i>&nbsp;is a much-needed resource that addresses the&nbsp;&lsquo;medical misinformation mess&rsquo;&nbsp;by assessing the flaws in&nbsp;the&nbsp;research&nbsp;environment. This authoritative&nbsp;text&nbsp;identifies and&nbsp;summarises&nbsp;the many factors that have produced the current problems in medical research,&nbsp;including bias in&nbsp;randomised&nbsp;controlled trials, questionable research practices, falsified data, manipulated findings, and more.&nbsp;</p> <p>This volume&nbsp;brings together&nbsp;the findings from meta-research studies&nbsp;and systematic reviews&nbsp;to&nbsp;explore&nbsp;the quality of&nbsp;clinical trials&nbsp;and other medical research,&nbsp;explaining&nbsp;the character and consequences of poor-quality medical evidence&nbsp;using clear language and&nbsp;a wealth of supporting references.&nbsp;The text&nbsp;suggests&nbsp;planning strategies to transform the research process&nbsp;and&nbsp;provides an extensive list of the actions that could be taken&nbsp;by researchers, regulators, and other&nbsp;key stakeholders&nbsp;to address defects in medical evidence. This timely volume:&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Enables readers to select reliable studies and&nbsp;recognise&nbsp;misleading research&nbsp;</li> <li>Highlights the&nbsp;main types of biased and wasted studies&nbsp;</li> <li>Discusses how incentives in the research environment influence the quality of evidence&nbsp;</li> <li>Identifies the problems&nbsp;researchers need to guard against in their work&nbsp;</li> <li>Describes&nbsp;the scale of poor-quality research&nbsp;and&nbsp;explores&nbsp;why the problems are widespread&nbsp;</li> <li>Includes a summary of key findings on poor-quality research and a listing of proposed initiatives to improve research evidence&nbsp;</li> <li>Contains extensive citations to references, reviews, commentaries, and&nbsp;landmark studies&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p><i>Evidence in Medicine</i>&nbsp;is required reading for all&nbsp;researchers who create evidence, funders and publishers of medical research, students&nbsp;who conduct their own research studies, and healthcare practitioners wanting to deliver high-quality, evidence-based care.&nbsp;</p>