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Lent 2010
1. In a hypothetical clinical trial, a new drug was compared with "standard therapy" treatment. The endpoint was
myocardial infarction.
Which of the following best describes the primary reason to randomize patients to treatments? (Choose one best
answer)
a. to create two treatment groups that are similar at baseline on both known and unknown factors associated with
myocardial infarction.
b. prevent bias introduced when the patients know what type of treatment they are receiving
c. prevent bias introduced when the investigators know what type of treatment the patients are receiving
d. b and c
2. A randomized trial studied 242 HIV-seropositive, 2nd-trimester pregnant women to assess the efficacy of zidovudine
(AZT) in preventing perinatal HIV transmission. Results were:
Results from a randomized trial of the efficacy of zidovudine in preventing perinatal HIV transmission
1
2a. Which one answer best describes the transmission rate in the table?
a. proportion
b. relative rate
c. absolute rate
d. odds
b. Using the data in the table, estimate the relative risk of HIV infection for infants whose mothers took zidovudine
relative to infants of mothers who took placebo. Show formula and calculations.
3. In a case-control study to investigate oral contraception and breast cancer (Choose one best answer)
Options:
2
5. For a t test for two independent samples to be (Choose two best answers):
A. the numbers of observations must be approximately the same in the two groups.
B. the standard deviations of observations must be approximately the same in the two groups.
C. the means must be approximately the same in the two groups.
D. the observations must be from distributions which are approximately Normal.
E. the sizes of samples the must be small.
6. The standard chi-squared test for a 2x2 contingency table is not valid unless (Choose 1 best answer):
8. Bradford Hill considerations for causal criteria can be summarised as (Please answer true/false):
a. Temporality
b. Dose-response relationship
c. Consistency
d. Plausibility
e. Specificity
f. Experimental evidence
3
9. 1319 children were questioned on prevalence of symptoms of severe cold at age 12 and again at 14 years. At age
12, 356 (27%) children reported to have severe colds in the past 12 months compared to 468 (35.5%) at age 14.
a. Case-Control
b. Ecological study
c. Cohort study
d. Cross-sectional study
e. Nested-case control
(b) To compare the prevalence of severe cold you should use (Choose one best answer):
a. the larger the study the more power it has to detect a given difference.
b. its best practice to write NS for a non-significant statistical test.
c. it is best practice to do multiple statistical tests to find relationships in a data set.
d. Power calculations are typically done after a study is completed.
e. The statistical test to use when comparing 2 independent means (normal distribution) is the Cochran Q-test.
f. a confounding variable is not associated with the outcome
g. a confounding factor always is on the causal pathway
h. Specificity= TN/TN+FP
i. PPV= TP/TP+FN
j. Criteria for screening are that the disease should be detectable at a latent stage
k. Assessment of a screening program is done by whether more disease is diagnosed and by survival time.
l. to assess outcome in a screening programme it is best to compare screened vs non-screened to reduce selection
bias