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A doctor who believes strongly that antidepressants work better than "talk therapy" tests depressed patients by treating half of them with antidepressants and
six months the patients are evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 indicating the greatest improvement. Answer parts (a) through (d)
below.
C
a. The doctor is concerned that if his most severely depressed patients do not receive the antidepressants, they will get much worse. He therefore decides t
assigned to receive the antidepressants. Explain why this will affect his ability to determine which approach works best.
OA. The doctor is letting his empathy get in the way of treating the patients objectively. This may cause personal issues for either the doctor or the patiem
B. The doctor is creating a second treatment group that is dependent on the severity of the patient's depression. This will further confound the results.
OC. The doctor is assigning all antidepressants to only the most severely depressed people.
D. If the doctor decides on the treatment, this could introduce bias.
b. What advice would you give the doctor to improve his study?
A. The doctor should remain as objective as possible in order to increase the chances of successfully treating the patients.
B. The doctor should divide the patients into groups based on how depressed they are, and give out a certain percentage of antidepressants to the I-
percentage to the more depressed group, and so on.
OC. The doctor must give an equal number of antidepressants to the least depressed patients and the most depressed patients in order to make
D. The doctor should remove the least depressed people from the study.
OE. The doctor should randomly assign the patients to the different treatments.
c. The doctor asks you whether it is acceptable for him to know which treatment each patient receives and to evaluate them himself at the end of the
this practice will affect his ability to determine which approach works best.
OA. If the doctor is aware of the treatment each patient receives, he may become too invested in the well-being of the patients.
OB. If the doctor is aware of the treatment each patient receives, it may negatively affect the relationship between the doctor and patient during th