Appraise

Measures of Risk and Benefit

In this section we will consider how the results of RCTs are presented, looking at:

how the risk of an event is described as a percentage chance, a probability or as odds
how the relative benefit of a treatment can be presented as a releative risk or relative risk reduction, and the difference between them
the advantages of using absolute measures of benefit, particularly the numbers needed to treat, and how to calculate them
the importance of interpreting results in the context of the time scale of the study
other ways of presenting results, including survival curves and mean differences

This page updated on 25/11/05