Author Question: A nursing student asks a nurse about pharmaceutical research and wants to know the purpose of ... (Read 73 times)

awywial · **on:** Jul 23, 2018

A nursing student asks a nurse about pharmaceutical research and wants to know the purpose of randomization in drug trials. The nurse explains that randomization is used to:

a. ensure that differences in outcomes are the result of treatment and not differences in subjects.
b. compare the outcome caused by the treatment to the outcome caused by no treatment.
c. make sure that researchers are unaware of which subjects are in which group.
d. prevent subjects from knowing which group they are in and prevent preconception bias.

Question 2

A nurse educator is conducting a continuing education class on pharmacology. To evaluate the learning of the nurses in the class, the nurse educator asks, Which drug name is a generic drug name? Which is the correct response?

a. Acetaminophen
b. Tylenol
c. Cipro
d. Motrin

Anton · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 23, 2018

Answer to Question 1

ANS: A
Randomization helps prevent allocation bias, which can occur when researchers place subjects with desired characteristics in the study group and other subjects in the control group so that differences in outcome are actually the result of differences in subjects and not treatment. Comparing treatment outcome to no treatment outcome is the definition of a controlled study. The last two options describe the use of blinding in studies; blinding ensures that researchers or subjects (or both) are unaware of which subjects are in which group so that preconceptions about benefits and risks cannot bias the results.

Answer to Question 2

ANS: A
Acetaminophen is the generic name. Tylenol, Cipro, and Motrin are all trade names.