Measurement error, time lag, unmeasured confounding: Considerations for longitudinal estimation of the effect of a mediator in randomised clinical trials.

ABSTRACT: Clinical trials are expensive and time-consuming and so should also be used to study how treatments work, allowing for the evaluation of theoretical treatment models and refinement and improvement of treatments. These treatment processes can be studied using mediation analysis. Randomised treatment makes some of the assumptions of mediation models plausible, but the mediator-outcome relationship could remain subject to bias. In addition, mediation is assumed to be a temporally ordered longitudinal process, but estimation in most mediation studies to date has been cross-sectional and unable to explore this assumption. This study used longitudinal structural equation modelling of mediator and outcome measurements from the PACE trial of rehabilitative treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome (

SUBMITTER: Goldsmith KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5958412 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature