A randomized controlled trial was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a new drug treatment on 500 patients with high blood pressure. The study randomly divided the patients into the drug treatment and placebo control groups and compared the average blood pressure after 2 months of treatment between the two groups. When the researchers looked at the results, they realized there was a potential problem. Although the new drug appeared to significantly lower the blood pressure compared to the control group, they also noticed that the average blood pressure of patients in the placebo control group prior to the study was significantly lower than patients in the treatment group prior to the study. If this is true, what impact could it have on the conclusions the researchers could draw? a. It wouldn't have an impact on the study result, because the study is already flawed as the patients are not representative of the whole population. b. It could bias the study results, making the new drug treatment look more effective than it really is. c. It could bias the study results, making the new drug treatment look less effective than it really is. d. It wouldn’t have an impact on the results, because it's the attempt to randomize that counts.

MATLAB: An Introduction with Applications

6th Edition

ISBN:9781119256830

Author:Amos Gilat

Publisher:Amos Gilat

Chapter1: Starting With Matlab

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 1P

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Question

A randomized controlled trial was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a new drug treatment on 500 patients with high blood pressure. The study randomly divided the patients into the drug treatment and placebo control groups and compared the average blood pressure after 2 months of treatment between the two groups.

When the researchers looked at the results, they realized there was a potential problem. Although the new drug appeared to significantly lower the blood pressure compared to the control group, they also noticed that the average blood pressure of patients in the placebo control group prior to the study was significantly lower than patients in the treatment group prior to the study.

If this is true, what impact could it have on the conclusions the researchers could draw?

a. It wouldn't have an impact on the study result, because the study is already flawed as the patients are not representative of the whole population.

b. It could bias the study results, making the new drug treatment look more effective than it really is.

c. It could bias the study results, making the new drug treatment look less effective than it really is.

d. It wouldn’t have an impact on the results, because it's the attempt to randomize that counts.

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