In a study designed to evaluate the benefits of taking Echin

In a study designed to evaluate the benefits of taking Echinacea when you have a cold, 719 patients were randomly divided into four groups. The groups were (1) no pills, (2) pills that had no Echinacea, (3) pills that had Echinacea but the subjects did not know whether or not the pills contained Echinacea, and (4) pills that had Echinacea and the bottle containing the pills stated that the contents included Echinacea. The outcome was a measure of the severity of the cold.6 Identify the type of data collected in this study. Give reasons for your answer.

Solution

A randomised controlled trial is a type of scientific (often medical) experiment, where the people being studied are randomly allocated to one or other of the different treatments under study.

We can observe that In the given study719 patients were allocated to following 4 groups:

1. those recieving no pills

2. those recieving placebo[ that is those recieving no Echinacea]

3. those blinded to echinacea that is subjects did not know whether or not the pills contained Echinacea.

4. those recieving pills that had Echinacea and the bottle containing the pills stated that the contents included Echinacea.

So study under consideration is a randomised controlled trial.

In this study variable under consideration is \"severity of the cold\", It is a catagorical variable. So In this study we collect nominal scale data.