Internal and external validity: can you apply research study results to your patients?

Internal and External Validity in Clinical Research

dvances in clinical psychology critically depend on methods researchers use for investigating the causal relationships among variables. Research questions commonly include issues about the putative mechanisms associated with various forms of psychopathology (e.g., do dysfunctional beliefs cause depression?) and questions about the effects of treatments (e.g., does cognitive therapy cause a grea...

What you don't know can hurt you (and your patients).

The goal of modern dentistry is to return patients to oral health in a predictable fashion. The partial and complete edentulous patient may be unable to recover normal function, aesthetics, comfort, or speech with a traditional removable prosthesis. The aesthetics of the edentulous patient are affected as a result of bone atrophy. Continued resorption leads to irreversible facial changes. An im...

External, Internal and Construct Validity

Introduction In research, validity refers to the degree to which findings are applicable in real-life situations. Essentially, if the findings are strongly valid, it implies that they have an excellent degree of applicability. In contrast, low validity implies that the survey is not applicable in real-life situations. The specific approach used during research has strong influence on validity. ...

What you can do to help your uninsured patients.

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, 45.7 million people in the United States are uninsured. This exceeds the number enrolled in Medicare (44.8 million) and approaches the number enrolled in Medicaid (58.7 million). After a combined total of 23 years in private practice, we decided to do something to help the growing number of uninsured patients in our own community. In 2004 we...

Do you Recommend an Interdisciplinary Field to Your Graduate Student?