A pharmaceutical company developed a new drug which they thought would relieve d

Question

A pharmaceutical company developed a new drug which they thought would relieve depression and naturally was interestd in supportng its investment. Consequently, the firm hird a team of researchers to investigate the potential effectiveness of the drug. These researchers identified a group of psychiatric patients who were experiencing chronic depression and randomly assigned half of the patients to drug group and half of the patients o the placebo group. To avoid any possible confusion in administering the drug or placebo to the patients one psychiatric nurse was told that she was to administer the drug and another nurse was told that she was to administer the placebo. One month later the drug group had dramaically improved over the placebo group and the pharmaceuical company was elated and stated that i had developed a new effective anti-depressant drug.

Explanation / Answer

one uncontrolled variable is the nurse. Different nurses couldinfluence outcome. Another variable not controlled for is degree of depression. Thosenot as depressed may have been given med. Another issue may be how it was decided that one group dramaticallyimproved.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse A
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.