Practice Test Geeks(CMD) Certified Medical Director Practice Test
← All CMD Flashcard Decks

Research Methods & Evidence-Based Practice Flashcards

7 cards from real CMD practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.

Read the first 7 Research Methods & Evidence-Based Practice flashcards as text

  1. A Medical Director reviews a study where patients were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, and neither patients nor researchers knew who received the treatment. What study design is this?

    Answer: Double-blind randomized controlled trial

    A double-blind RCT assigns participants randomly while masking both participants and investigators to treatment allocation, minimizing performance and detection bias.

  2. Which statistical measure best describes the strength of association between a risk factor and an outcome in a case-control study?

    Answer: Odds ratio

    Case-control studies calculate odds ratios because incidence rates cannot be directly determined from this retrospective design.

  3. A CMD evaluates a quality improvement initiative. The PDSA cycle stands for:

    Answer: Plan, Do, Study, Act

    The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle is the foundational iterative model for quality improvement in healthcare settings.

  4. In a clinical study, the p-value is 0.03 with a significance threshold of 0.05. Which conclusion is most appropriate?

    Answer: The null hypothesis is rejected

    A p-value below the predetermined alpha (0.05) indicates sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis, though this does not confirm clinical significance.

  5. A Medical Director wants to understand why nursing staff resist a new protocol. Which research approach is most appropriate?

    Answer: Qualitative focus groups

    Qualitative methods such as focus groups elicit in-depth perspectives on attitudes, beliefs, and experiences underlying behavioral resistance.

  6. Sensitivity of a screening test refers to its ability to:

    Answer: Correctly identify true positives

    Sensitivity measures the proportion of people with the disease who test positive (true positive rate), reflecting the test's ability to detect disease.

  7. Which level of the evidence hierarchy carries the highest quality for evaluating treatment effectiveness?

    Answer: Systematic review with meta-analysis

    Systematic reviews with meta-analyses synthesize data from multiple high-quality RCTs and sit at the top of most evidence hierarchies for treatment questions.