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The Scientific Method and Treatment Outcomes
“Better Treatments through Scientific Treatment Outcome Studies.”
The Scientific Method is a set of basic steps that scientists (and many lay people) use to try and make sense of our world. Understanding science and its methods can help one better understand scientific research results, which can lead to better decisions about appropriate prevention and treatment programs. So-called “treatment outcome studies” which look to see how well a particular treatment works, allow you to make better choices about treatment. The links below provide some basic understanding about how treatment outcome studies are done.
Scientific Method
- Introduction to the Scientific Method (Frank Wolfs, University of Rochester>
- Steps of the Scientific Method (ScienceBuddies.org)
Treatment Outcome Studies
- The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has a one page description of treatment outcome research. The first seven paragraphs layout treatment outcome research, the questions it tries to answer and the methods used in a nice fashion. I think it is a good, brief introduction to treatment outcome research.
- Lisa Najavits of Harvard Medical School has written a “HowTo” for treatment outcome studies. It is focused on pathological gambling studies, but it does outline the treatment outcome study process rather nicely. The article is in PDF format.
tl;dr: Better Treatments through Science.