Measuring Clinical Importance in a Trial of Interventions for Mixed Urinary Incontinence

To the Editor In a randomized clinical trial, Dr Sung and colleagues found that behavioral and pelvic floor muscle therapy combined with surgery, compared with surgery alone, improved urinary incontinence symptoms, but the difference did not meet the minimal clinically important difference (MCID). Although it is important to interpret the clinical magnitude of the difference observed between the experimental and control conditions in a randomized clinical trial, be it statistically significant or not, the way the authors used the MCID is misplaced. This is a common misuse of the MCID (also called the minimal important difference or minimal important change).
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research