Given the pandemic there is an urgency to consider another myth. See article in Chest a prestigious journal.
Comparison of Hospitalized Patients With ARDS Caused by COVID-19 and H1N1 -…
There were many differences in clinical presentations between patients with ARDS infected with either COVID-19 or H1N1. Compared with H1N1 patients, patients with COVID-19-induced ARDS had lower severity of illness scores at presentation and lower…
I would add to the myths the common view that the output of a threshold based function (for example a composite sum of scores) can be used as a measurement and incorporated into the statistical math of a observational study or RCT to render a valid, reproducible result without due consideration of the origin, derivation, reproducibility of the function itself as well as its applicability to the specific population under test.
(In the example of SOFA, which I discussed in another thread, the measurement is derived from 30 threshold levels of 6 measurements rendering 6 values which are added to produce the score upon which statistical math is applied to render a statistical output.)
Now watch how statisticians incorporate this “measurement” into a study.
“Patients with H1N1 had higher Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) scores than patients with COVID-19 (P < .05).” … The in-hospital mortality of patients with COVID-19 was 28.8%, whereas that of patients with H1N1 was 34.7% (P = .483). SOFA score-adjusted mortality of H1N1 patients was significantly higher than that of COVID-19 patients, with a rate ratio of 2.009 (95% CI, 1.563-2.583; P < .001).
The “sofa score adjusted mortality” proves the saying “You can adjust for a baseline ham sandwich.”
Probabaly some trusted the adjusted stats here.
Joking aside. Andrew, I would welcome your respected input in the measurement thread about composite scores and SOFA…