Hope may lead to unrealistic expectations

This is the tenth in a series of 34 blogs explaining 34 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

This blog explains that hope can be a good thing, but sometimes people in need or desperation hope that treatments will work and assume they cannot do any harm. Similarly, fear can lead people to use treatments that may not work and can cause harm. As a result, they may waste time and money on treatments that have never been shown to be useful, or may actually cause harm.

Debiasing and its Limitations

Debiasing is about trying to account for and eliminate the influence of biases on our decision-making. This blog discusses effective debiasing techniques.

O problema da Medicina Baseada em Evidências e o que fazer em relação a isso

This blog is a Portuguese translation of a blog discussing the problem of evidence-based medicine, with thanks to Cochrane Brazil Evidence Based Medicine is useful for informing healthcare professionals what works, what doesn’t, and helping to determine if the benefits outweigh the harms, but it’s far from perfect. This blog explores some of the issues.

Earlier is not necessarily better

This is the ninth in a series of 34 blogs explaining 34 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

This blog explains that people often assume that early detection of disease leads to better outcomes. However screening tests can be inaccurate (e.g. misclassifying people who do not have disease as having disease). Screening can also cause harm by labelling people as being sick when they are not and because of side effects of the tests and treatments.

Conducting a systematic literature search

This blog provides a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a systematic literature search.

More is not necessarily better

This is the eighth in a series of 34 blogs explaining 34 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

This blog explains that increasing the dose or amount of a treatment (e.g. how many vitamin pills you take) often increases harms without increasing beneficial effects. If a treatment is believed to be beneficial, we should not assume that more of it is better.

Beware of conflicting interests

This is the seventh in a series of 34 blogs explaining 34 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

This blog discusses how people with an interest in promoting a treatment (in addition to wanting to help people), such as making money, may promote treatments by exaggerating benefits and ignoring potential harmful effects. Conversely, people may be opposed to a treatment for a range of reasons, such as cultural practices.

Expert opinion is not always right

This is the sixth in a series of 34 blogs explaining 34 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

This blog explains that doctors, researchers, patient organisations and other authorities often disagree about the effects of treatments. It explains why we should not rely on the opinions of experts or other authorities about the effects of treatments, unless they clearly base their opinions on the findings of systematic reviews of fair comparisons of treatments.

Newer is not necessarily better

This is the fifth in a series of 34 blogs explaining 34 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

This blog explains that new treatments are often assumed to be better simply because they are new or because they are more expensive. However, they are only very slightly likely to be better than other available treatments.

Common practice is not always evidence-based

This is the fourth in a series of 34 blogs explaining 34 key concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims.

This blog explains that treatments that have not been properly evaluated but are widely used or have been used for a long time are often assumed to work. Sometimes, however, they may be unsafe or of doubtful benefit.