Bengali M K, Ottenbacher K J
Central Jersey Rehabilitation Services, Toms River, New Jersey, USA.
Am J Occup Ther. 1998 Sep;52(8):650-5. doi: 10.5014/ajot.52.8.650.
Single-subject research designs are used to conduct clinical research and outcome evaluation in occupational therapy. Confusion exists regarding the best method to analyze and interpret single-subject data.
One hundred graphs displaying the results of published single-subject research were examined to determine the influence of autocorrelation on the visual inferences made by the original investigators. The graphs were selected from 20 articles published over 10 years in seven rehabilitation journals. The data were extrapolated and lag 1 autocorrelation coefficients computed for both the baseline and treatment phases.
Data analysis focused on two issues: (a) whether a relationship existed between the amount of autocorrelation present in a graph and the conclusion on the basis of visual analysis and (b) whether the amount of autocorrelation varied across different phases of the single-subject graphs. When a significant degree of autocorrelation was present, researchers using visual analysis were more likely to conclude that there was no clinically significant change in performance. Autocorrelation values were significantly higher in the treatment phases of the single-subject designs.
Additional research is needed to establish a set of decision rules to assist clinicians in using visual analysis to evaluate the results of single-subject research.
单一受试者研究设计用于职业治疗中的临床研究和结果评估。在分析和解释单一受试者数据的最佳方法上存在困惑。
检查了100张展示已发表的单一受试者研究结果的图表，以确定自相关对原始研究者做出的视觉推断的影响。这些图表选自7种康复期刊在10年期间发表的20篇文章。对数据进行外推，并计算基线期和治疗期的滞后1自相关系数。
数据分析集中在两个问题上：（a）图表中存在的自相关量与基于视觉分析得出的结论之间是否存在关系，以及（b）自相关量在单一受试者图表的不同阶段是否有所变化。当存在显著程度的自相关时，使用视觉分析的研究者更有可能得出表现没有临床显著变化的结论。单一受试者设计的治疗期自相关值显著更高。
需要进行更多研究来建立一套决策规则，以帮助临床医生使用视觉分析来评估单一受试者研究的结果。
