Open AccessImproving rheumatoid arthritis comparative effectiveness research through causal inference principles: systematic review using a target trial emulation framework
Author(s) -
Sizheng Steven Zhao,
Houchen Lyu,
Daniel H. Solomon,
Kazuki Yoshida
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
annals of the rheumatic diseases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.333
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1468-2060
pISSN - 0003-4967
DOI - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-217200
Subject(s) - observational study , medicine , causal inference , randomized controlled trial , protocol (science) , research design , meta analysis , clinical trial , confounding , clinical study design , emulation , systematic review , medical physics , medline , alternative medicine , statistics , pathology , psychology , social psychology , mathematics , political science , law
Target trial emulation is an intuitive design framework that encourages investigators to formulate their comparative effectiveness research (CER) question as a hypothetical randomised controlled trial (RCT). Our aim was to systematically review CER studies in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to provide examples of design limitations that could be avoided using target trial emulation, and how these limitations might introduce bias.