Published 11 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4581
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4581

Endgames

Statistical question

Matching

¹ Centre for Medical and Healthcare Education, St George’s, University of London, Tooting, London SW17 0RE

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Researchers used a matched case-control study design to investigate whether mobile phone use was associated with the development of glioma, a malignancy of the central nervous system.¹ Cases and controls were matched for age and sex. Information about potential risk factors was collected using a self report questionnaire.

Which of the following statements, if any, are true?

a) Matching reduces assessment bias of the potential risk factors

b) Matching adjusts for the effects of age and sex as confounding variables

c) Matching eliminates allocation bias

d) Matching reduces recall bias

b—In the above study, two groups of individuals were selected on the basis of their disease status: glioma (the cases) or no glioma (the controls). The aim of the case-control study was to identify potential risk factors for glioma. Cases and controls were compared for past exposure to proposed risk factors, including mobile phone use, to ascertain whether such . . . [Full text of this article]

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

Relevant Articles

Random allocation I

Philip Sedgwick
BMJ 2009 339: b4719. [Extract] [Full Text]

Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in adults: case-control study

Sarah J Hepworth, Minouk J Schoemaker, Kenneth R Muir, Anthony J Swerdlow, Martie J A van Tongeren, and Patricia A McKinney
BMJ 2006 332: 883-887. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Sedgwick, P. (2009). Random allocation I. BMJ 339: b4719-b4719 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Bias

L Sam Lewis
bmj.com, 15 Nov 2009 [Full text]

Online poll

Find out more here>> and here>>