Advantages of Observational Studies
- RCT's rarely powered for ADE's.
- RCT's have poor external validity.
- May not generalize to the patient population for whom the intervention may be applied.
- Women, children, minorities, very elderly are under-represented.
- Multiple drug choices and alternatives.
- Co-morbid conditions.
- RCT setting, health care providers is "artificial".
- Longer term follow-up is usually achievable.
- Facilitates risk management and risk minimization.
- Enables better translation.
- Interventions that are efficacious under a highly specific set of circumstances often fail to replicate across a wide variety of settings, conditions, patients.
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