BMJ 1997;314:1904 (28 June)

Letters

Trial of prescribing strategies in managing sore throat

Penicillin had no effect in patients negative for group A ß haemolytic streptococci

Editor–P Little and colleagues state that their study and the study by Whitfield and Hughes are the largest primary care trials in patients with sore throat.1 2 This is not so, and both of these studies can be criticised on methodological grounds.

In 1987 American authors defined the 10 methodological criteria for valid randomised clinical trials in pharyngitis in primary health care: trials should be prospective, randomised, double blind, and placebo controlled; compliance should be checked by urine testing; there should be a sufficient number of subjects; throat swabs should be used; the patients included should be a representative sample; placebo and treatment groups should be comparable; and direct observation should be used.3 The study by Little and colleagues fulfils only seven of these 10 criteria. Compliance was not investigated, no throat swabs were used, and direct observation . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Open randomised trial of prescribing strategies in managing sore throat
P Little, I Williamson, G Warner, C Gould, M Gantley, and A L Kinmonth
BMJ 1997 314: 722. [Abstract] [Full Text]

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ