Confounding by indication in clinical research

JAMA

1 November 2016 - In the assessment of the effect of a treatment or potential risk factor—termed an exposure—on a patient outcome, the possibility of confounding by other factors must be considered. 

For example, if researchers studied the effect of coffee drinking on the development of lung cancer, they might observe an apparent association between these two variables. However, because drinking coffee is also related to smoking, the observed association between coffee drinking and lung cancer does not represent a true causal relationship but is rather the result of the association of coffee drinking with smoking—the confounder—which is the true cause of lung cancer.

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Michael Wonder

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Michael Wonder

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Clinical trial , Bias