N-of-1 Trials in Medical Contexts

Abstract

Clinicians make treatment decisions on a regular basis, and some decisions may result in patients taking treatments for years. This decision-making is a core skill of clinicians, and if possible it should be evidence based. The most common tool to aid this decision making, the RCT, has many problems which can lead to a patient being prescribed a treatment that may not work for them. N-of-1 studies may be useful tools to assist in making the best decision possible. This chapter argues the case for N-of-1 studies assuming a place in the clinical armamentarium. It describes the rationale for and uses of N-of-1 trials, the advantages and limitations of N-of-1 trials, and discusses aggregation of N-of-1 trials to generate population estimates of effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)