Abstract
Objectives: In quality of care research, the balanced incomplete block (BIB) design is regularly claimed to have been used when evaluating complex interventions. In this article, we reflect on the appropriateness of using this design for evaluating complex interventions.
Study Design and Setting: Literature study using PubMed and handbooks.
Results: After studying various articles on health services research that claim to have applied the BIB and the original methodological literature on this design, it became clear that the applied method is in fact not a BIB design.
Conclusion: We conclude that the use of this design is not suited for evaluating complex interventions. We stress that, to prevent improper use of terms, more attention should be paid to proper referencing of the original methodological literature.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1295-1298 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Journal of Clinical Epidemiology |
Volume | 67 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2014 |
Keywords
- Research methodology
- Evaluation studies
- Primary care
- Health care evaluation mechanisms
- Quality of health care
- Epidemiologic research design
- RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-TRIAL
- TEST ORDERING PERFORMANCE
- PRIMARY-CARE
- IMPLEMENTATION
- STRATEGY