• Anaesthesia · Oct 2020

    Review

    Are most randomised trials in anaesthesia and critical care wrong? An analysis using Bayes' theorem.

    • D Sidebotham.
    • Department of Anaesthesia and the Cardiothoracic and Vascular Intensive Care Unit, Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand.
    • Anaesthesia. 2020 Oct 1; 75 (10): 1386-1393.

    AbstractFalse findings are an inevitable consequence of statistical testing. In this article, I use Bayes' theorem to estimate the false positive and false negative risks for randomised controlled trials related to our speciality. For small trials in peri-operative medicine, the false positive risk appears to be at least 50%. For trials reporting weakly significant p values, the risk is even higher. By contrast, large, multicentre trials in critical care appear to have a high false negative risk. These findings suggest much of the evidence that underpins our clinical practice is likely to be wrong.© 2020 Association of Anaesthetists.

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