Am J Psychiatry 1984; 141:1075-1077
Copyright © 1984 by American Psychiatric Association
Clinical research: a key to clinical training
E Giller and J Strauss
Rational clinical decision making is at the core of any medical field,
including psychiatry. Although clinical decision making should be based on
reasoning logically from sufficient hard data, the process is often
short-circuited; hypotheses are considered fact or causality is inferred
where only association exists. This report describes how clinical research
protocols provide a structure that helps train clinicians to reduce these
errors. A good research design forces articulation and evaluation of
hypotheses and prevents premature assumption of causality. The authors
present case examples which show that clinical research can serve as
in-service training for staff clinicians.
