Abstract
Clinicians make treatment decisions on a regular basis, and some decisions may result in patients taking treatments for years. This decision-making is a core skill of clinicians, and if possible it should be evidence based. The most common tool to aid this decision making, the RCT, has many problems which can lead to a patient being prescribed a treatment that may not work for them. N-of-1 studies may be useful tools to assist in making the best decision possible. This chapter argues the case for N-of-1 studies assuming a place in the clinical armamentarium. It describes the rationale for and uses of N-of-1 trials, the advantages and limitations of N-of-1 trials, and discusses aggregation of N-of-1 trials to generate population estimates of effect.
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Mitchell, G. (2015). N-of-1 Trials in Medical Contexts. In: Nikles, J., Mitchell, G. (eds) The Essential Guide to N-of-1 Trials in Health. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7200-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7200-6_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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