Relating clinical study design to basic research.

Abstract

Devising any research study involves careful attention to its design, as well as the development of an appropriate research question and hypothesis. Together, these attributes ensure the validity of the study in question. In most clinical or epidemiological studies, the types of research designs are often explicitly noted, whereas in papers describing basic or biological research, they are couched in different terms or, more often, are ignored, thus potentially hindering communication between basic and clinical researchers. However, given that the framework for all valid scientific research is based on sound logic, it is proposed that for each study design, a direct homology exists between clinical and basic research paradigms, despite the problem of relating epidemiological vernacular to basic research. By applying examples of basic research protocols to traditional clinical study designs, this paper shows that parallels can be drawn between the two strategies, suggesting that in the absence of a conventional nomenclature to describe basic research study designs, the use of traditional clinical design jargon is valid in describing basic research protocols.