It’s important to understand what bias is not. Bias is not fraud, as it does not involve intentional prejudice. Bias is also not random error, which creates deviation in results strictly by chance, and can be mitigated with a large enough study sample. Put simply, bias has to do with the unintentional skewing of results due to human failings such as poor trial design or unconscious wishes for desirable outcomes.

As a physician, you’re expected to practice evidence-based medicine. But how can anyone keep up with the latest research?

After a psychiatric drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a marketing juggernaut often follows, trying to convince us that the newly approved drug offers substantial benefits for treating a mental disorder. But how does the FDA determine whether to approve a drug? What follows is a breakdown of the process.

...

Bruce Cuthbert, PhD, the head of the NIMH’s new Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) program, explains how this new way of funding and conducting research in psychiatry is revolutionizing the field.

Considering the increased efforts to legalize marijuana in many states, greater public awareness of marijuana and its potential medicinal uses, and new research on cannabis and its constituents, it is essential that psychiatrists understand some of its proposed benefits—and fundamental risks.

President of the California Society of Addiction Medicine Itai Danovitch offers an overview of what psychiatrists should know about medical marijuana.

Dr. Turner and his colleagues published a paper entitled “Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy.” It caused quite a stir in the field. Here, he explains his findings.

In this article, guest author Jeffrey S. Barkin, MD, describes an approach to reading journal literature designed to derive the most useful information in the least amount of time.

You won’t get very far into any journal before you start reading about statistical significance, and its close sibling, 95% confidence intervals. But what do these terms mean, and how do they help us draw conclusions about studies?