This is a summary of Chapter XIII of “The Sensitive Nervous System” by David Butler.

Intro

Research has demonstrated that often evidenced-based medicine is low on the list for why clinicians choose a particular treatment. From an ethical standpoint, it is important to consider evidence. This chapter is very short so I will just provide the highlights that I got from it.

Appraising a New Theory or Approach

There are six criteria that a new theory should be evaluated by:

1)      Support from anatomical and physiological evidence.

2)      Designed for a specific population.

3)      Studies from peer-reviewed journals.

4)      Include a well-designed randomized controlled trial or single experiment.

5)      Present potential side effects.

6)      Proponents discuss and are open to limitations.

Agreement

Here are some definitions of different ways research measures agreement.

–          Cohen’s Kappa: Measures nominal data reliability.

• >0.75 is excellent agreement.
• 0.40-0.75 is fair to good.
• <0.40 is poor.

–          Pearson product movement correlation: Measures interval/ratio data.

–          ICC: Measures continuous data.

• The closer to 1, the better.

Validity

There are also many different validity types defined throughout this chapter. The first two are proven through logic and have the least evidence support.

–          Construct Validity: Valid relative to a theoretical foundation.

–          Content Validity: Can I use this measure to make an inference?

The next two are higher up on the evidence support hierarchy.

–          Convergent Validity: The test shows a correlation between two variables.

–          Discriminant Validity: The test shows a low correlation between two variables.

Lastly, these are criterion-based tests that infer similar results compared to an established test.

–          Concurrent Validity: the compared tests are performed at the same time.

–          Predictive Validity: The tests are compared at different dates.