OK, let’s talk about that. Because it’s one thing to ‘find a study’; it’s another thing entirely to interpret it properly. Note that by ‘interpret’ I don’t mean the bottom-line implication of the study itself–that is often straightforward, as in the study you refer to (not having read it, I’m assuming for the sake of argument your bottom-line impression of the results is accurate). Rather, what I’m talking about is:
-
Evaluating the quality of the study. For example, was there anything about participant recruitment/selection that should give one pause? (This is a huge concern in such studies.) What were the dependent variables, and how accurate are the methods by which they were measured? Were statistics employed appropriately? Are the authors a known quantity; ie, does their lab have a reputation for doing good work, or are they infamously shoddy? Do they have connections to the drug industry? Was the work funded by a grant from a pharma corp? The journal in which the study was published–does it have a good reputation? Is it top-tier (and thus highly selective), or a low-tier journal that will publish almost anything? Does it have a rep for high standards of peer review? (Be honest: Do you even know whether the article was peer-reviewed?)
There’s a reason journals don’t just publish the Conclusions section of a study–why the bulk of an article is dedicated to Methods and Results. If someone can’t read these sections readily and fluidly, they can’t evaluate the study. And if they can’t evaluate it, they can’t (credibly) use it to make medical decisions on their own behalf–much less to render medical advice to anyone else. -
Evaluating the study relative to the existing literature on the subject. Studies do not exist in a vacuum, and can’t be read that way either. Rather, studies must be contextualized–read in terms of what we already know about a given topic (ie, the existing literature). Special scrutiny must be given to studies that report results at odds with what is already known. And the only way one can contextualize a study is if s/he is deeply, expertly familiar with the previously-existing literature. If you can’t contextualize a study, you’re flying blind.
Putting it all together: If you didn’t evaluate all these issues re the study before drawing your own conclusions from it, you are–respectfully–kidding yourself if you think you made an informed decision when you overrode your doc and altered your prescribed therapy.
I have already acknowledged that most posters here are good dudes sincerely trying to help one another. But even good people cannot credibly “share what they have learned” if they have no way of assessing whether they’ve learned anything worth sharing.