Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, 1st Department of Internal Medicine, AHEPA Hospital, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
Institute of Clinical Physiology (IFC-CNR), Clinical Epidemiology and Physiopathology of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, Ospedali Riuniti, via Vallone Petrara, Reggio Calabria, Italy.
Aging Clin Exp Res. 2021 Mar;33(3):505-511. doi: 10.1007/s40520-020-01538-8. Epub 2020 Apr 8.
The hazard ratio is a measure of effect which is of paramount importance in etiological research, that is in studies aimed at assessing the strength of the causal relationship between a given treatment/exposure and a certain outcome. Despite the widespread use of the hazard ratio as a measure of effect in scientific reports and articles, the interpretation of this index is often accompanied by some misconceptions which can jeopardize the critical appraisal of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and observational studies as well. Herein, using a series of examples derived from RCTs in the elderly subjects, we address major pitfalls regarding the interpretation of the hazard ratio in geriatric research.
风险比是一种效应度量，在病因学研究中至关重要，即旨在评估特定治疗/暴露与特定结局之间因果关系强度的研究中。尽管风险比作为一种效应度量在科学报告和文章中被广泛使用，但该指标的解释常常伴随着一些误解，这可能会影响对随机临床试验 (RCT) 和观察性研究的批判性评价。在此，我们使用来自老年人群体 RCT 的一系列示例，讨论了在老年医学研究中解释风险比的主要陷阱。
