Sufficiently important difference for common cold: severity reduction
Open accessAbstract
PURPOSE: We undertook a study to estimate the sufficiently important difference (SID) for the common cold. The SID is the smallest benefit that an intervention would require to justify costs and risks. METHODS: Benefit-harm tradeoff interviews (in-person and telephone) assessed SID in terms of overall severity reduction using evidence-based simple-language scenarios for 4 common cold treatments: vitamin C, the herbal medicine echinacea, zinc lozenges, and the unlicensed antiviral pleconaril. RESULTS: Response patterns to the 4 scenarios in the telephone and in-person samples were not statistically distinguishable and were merged for most analyses. The scenario based on vitamin C led to a mean SID of 25% (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.23-0.27). For the echinacea-based scenario, mean SID was 32% (95% CI, 0.30-0.34). For the zinc-based scenario, mean SID was 47% (95% CI, 0.43-0.51). The scenario based on preliminary antiviral trials provided a mean SID of 57% (95% CI, 0.53-0.61). Multivariate analyses suggested that (1) between-scenario differences were substantive and reproducible in the 2 samples, (2) presence or severity of illness did not predict SID, and (3) SID was not influenced by age, sex, tobacco use, ethnicity, income, or education. Despite consistencies supporting the model and methods, response patterns were diverse, with wide spreads of individual SID values within and among treatment scenarios. CONCLUSIONS: Depending on treatment specifics, people want an on-average 25% to 57% reduction in overall illness severity to justify costs and risks of popular cold treatments. Randomized trial evidence does not support benefits this large. This model and these methods should be further developed for use in other disease entities.
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In Barret 2007, a sufficiently important difference was about 25% for a cheap treatment without adverse effects.
“In a study on severity reduction in the common cold, Barret 2007 found that a sufficiently important difference meaning “the smallest amount of patient‐valued benefit that an intervention would require in order to justify associated costs, risk and other harms” was about 25% for a cheap treatment without adverse effects.”
From Oral antihistamine-decongestant-analgesic combinations for the common cold (2022) · cites this paper as Barret 2007
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NAME: Bruce Patrick Barrett DEGREES:
Wi, M. (2009)
What does this evidence mean for my practice?
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- Authors
- Barrett, B., Harahan, B., Brown, D., Zhang, Z., & Brown, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin System (US)
- Corresponding author
- Barrett, B.
- Harahan, B.
- Brown, R.
- ORCID
- Barrett, B.
- Venue
- The Annals of Family Medicine
- Publisher
- Annals of Family Medicine
- Published
- 2007-05-01
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 216-223
- ISSN
- 1544-1709 (ISSN-L)
- 1544-1717
- PMC
- PMC1886488
- OpenAlex
- W2171297145
- Cited by
- 48
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 10.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Annals of Family Medicine (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM008692)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic and Environmental Valuation
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Complementary and alternative medicine › Herbal Medicine Research Studies
- Keywords
- common cold, disease severity, vitamin C, Echinacea, zinc lozenges, pleconaril, patient preferences, cost-effectiveness threshold
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Antiviral Agents, Ascorbic Acid, Common Cold, Female, Humans, Male, Phytotherapy, Middle Aged, Oxadiazoles, Oxazoles, Plant Extracts, Surveys and Questionnaires, Severity of Illness Index, Vitamins, Treatment Outcome, Zinc Compounds, Risk Assessment, Echinacea
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