Green, M. J., Browne, W. J., Green, Laura E., Bradley, Andrew J., Leach, K. A., Breen, J. E. and Medley, Graham. (2009) Bayesian analysis of a mastitis control plan to investigate the influence of veterinary prior beliefs on clinical interpretation. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, Vol.91 (No.2-4). pp. 209-217. ISSN 0167-5877

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Abstract

The fundamental objective for health research is to determine whether changes should be made to clinical decisions. Decisions made by veterinary surgeons in the light of new research evidence are known to be influenced by their prior beliefs, especially their initial opinions about the plausibility of possible results. In this paper, clinical trial results for a bovine mastitis control plan were evaluated within a Bayesian context, to incorporate a community of prior distributions that represented a spectrum of clinical prior beliefs. The aim was to quantify the effect of veterinary surgeons' initial viewpoints on the interpretation of the trial results. A Bayesian analysis was conducted using Markov chain Monte Carlo procedures. Stochastic models included a financial cost attributed to a change in clinical mastitis following implementation of the control plan. Prior distributions were incorporated that covered a realistic range of possible clinical viewpoints, including scepticism, enthusiasm and uncertainty. Posterior distributions revealed important differences in the financial gain that clinicians with different starting viewpoints would anticipate from the mastitis control plan, given the actual research results. For example, a severe sceptic would ascribe a probability of 0.50 for a return of <5 pound per cow in an average herd that implemented the plan, whereas an enthusiast would ascribe this probability for a return of >20 pound per cow. Simulations using increased trial sizes indicated that if the original study was four times as large, an initial sceptic would be more convinced about the efficacy of the control plan but would still anticipate less financial return than an initial enthusiast would anticipate after the original study. In conclusion, it is possible to estimate how clinicians' prior beliefs influence their interpretation of research evidence. Further research on the extent to which different interpretations of evidence result in changes to clinical practice would be worthwhile. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	S Agriculture > SF Animal culture
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Life Sciences (2010- ) > Biological Sciences ( -2010)
Journal or Publication Title:	Preventive Veterinary Medicine
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0167-5877
Date:	1 October 2009
Volume:	Vol.91
Number:	No.2-4
Number of Pages:	9
Page Range:	pp. 209-217
Identification Number:	10.1016/j.prevetmed.2009.05.029
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder:	Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellow, Milk Development Council
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/17338

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

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