Pragmatic and Ethical Issues in Attention Control Group Design
Year: 2018
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: The focus of the “Healthy Living Control Group” is on wellness in an effort to provide meaningful and potentially beneficial activities for wait-list control caregivers whose active condition counterparts are receiving the Tele-Savvy Psychoeducation program. We developed as ethical, feasible and attractive a control group as possible while limiting exposure to programmatic elements theorized to influence our outcomes. This resulted in an evidence-based seven-week asynchronous video program with weekly synchronous facilitator lead caregiver groups—a condition comparable to the active Tele-Savvy arm in terms of social support, group effect, media exposure and the therapeutic relationship. This symposium is designed to stimulate conversation around the many factors in the design of control groups including: minimizing bias, and paralleling intensity, duration, frequency and equivalency of exposure to a therapeutic agent while balancing and respecting participant burden and time, adhering to methodological rigor, protecting against cross-contamination and compromised outcomes and minimizing spurious conclusions
Source: Innovation in Aging
Authors: K Hepburn, J R Nocera, F Epps, M Kovaleva, P C Griffiths
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,977
OpenAlex ID: W2900010223