Underpowered studies
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It is frequently argued that underpowered trials are unethical, that they are poor science and unreliable,
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Lilford & Stevens suggest that small studies, provided they are well designed, nevertheless contribute to the topic and field in which they are published.
“Despite the study being underpowered, Lilford & Stevens’ suggest that small studies, provided they are well designed, nevertheless contribute to the topic and field in which they are published [62].”
From Dual N-back working memory training in healthy adults: A randomized comparison to processing speed training. (2016) · cites this paper as [62]
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“In fact, this perspective has led some medical researchers to maintain that conducting underpowered clinical trials is unethical to research participants (Halpern, Karla-wish, & Berlin, 2002; but for contrary views see Janosky, 2002; Lilford & Stevens, 2002).”
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“As stated by Lilfort [28] referring to underpowered studies, “no evidence of effect” should not be confused with “evidence of no effect”.”
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- Authors
- Lilford, R., & Stevens, A. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- Venue
- British journal of surgery
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2002-02
- Volume
- 89
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 129-131
- ISSN
- 0007-1323 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-2168
- OpenAlex
- W3195407949
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 2.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
- Locations
- British journal of surgery (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods in Clinical Trials
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods in Epidemiology
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Keywords
- underpowered studies, clinical trial design, statistical power, research ethics, surgical research
- MeSH terms
- Clinical Trials as Topic, Humans, Reproducibility of Results, Publication Bias, Sample Size
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