ORIGINAL COMPANY-CONTEXT PRACTICE
Avoid counting several reports of one study as independent evidence
Original practice scenario: A hypothetical research-literature dashboard groups papers about a therapeutic area. Conference abstracts, later articles and follow-up analyses may describe the same study. Design evidence counting.
Written for independent practice using company context; this is not a verified question from a company interview.
A REASONED APPROACH
Model answer.
Distinguish publication identity from study identity and analysis identity. Several documents can contribute useful detail while still depending on the same underlying participants or experiment.
Work through it
- Retain bibliographic identifiers and study references, proposing publication-family links from explicit trial identifiers and reviewed contextual evidence.
- Record which population, time point and analysis each document covers, preserving uncertain relationships rather than merging solely on similar titles.
- Produce both document counts and independently defined study counts, exposing linked reports and overlap assumptions for reviewers assessing the evidence.
Tradeoffs to discuss
- Conservative grouping preserves distinctions but may overcount related reports; aggressive grouping can collapse genuinely separate studies.
Common pitfalls
- Do not treat a follow-up analysis as an independent replication without checking its underlying population.
- This data organization supports research review and does not by itself establish treatment benefit or clinical recommendations.