3 ms·

The actual concern raised, buried in the article (which is itself only a commentary on a different study): "So the action here, as the researcher admits, comes

The actual concern raised, buried in the article (which is itself only a commentary on a different study): "So the action here, as the researcher admits, comes not from the kids in the treatment group getting better, but rather from the kids in the comparison group getting worse." Isn't that how control groups are supposed to work? Your treatment should produce better outcomes than the lack of treatment. This appears to correctly be the case here. The fact that these treatments alone don't resolve gender dysphoria, is expected, they are one part of a process. Stopping a rapid decline is one huge step in the right direction.

zozbot234 5y ago
A proper control group should be defined as the state-of-the-art alternative, not as "no treatment". The latter is a common ploy used to push substandard, "me too" treatments.
- temp8964 5y ago
  Shouldn't the control group get placebo treatment? Simply by knowing they have been "treated" could already make them feel better. When the effect you are looking for is a psychological effect, it is even more serious a research design problem.
- lupire 5y ago
  what is the state of the art alternative, for this?
- notahacker 5y ago
  What's the "state of the art alternative" to address gender dysphoria in adolescents? Certainly the alternative to puberty blockers or hormones most often advocated is doing nothing. The author makes some perfectly reasonable points about flaws in the study like the large and uneven number of dropouts from the study, likelihood of confounding factors in the nonrandom selection process and oddities in its construction to the extent I'm not sure the study itself can be used as firm evidence of anything, but his insistence that the treatment group not getting worse like the control group can't be evidence for it being beneficial isn't justified either.
lupire 5y ago
Right. Seatbelts and parachutes and water and oxygen don't improve mental health either.
AyyWS 5y ago
Only 6 of 63 in the no treatment group provided data at the end of the study compared to 57 of 69 of the treated provided data. Then there's a bunch of other points. I mean, I feel like you just stopped reading to come to that conclusion.
- awb 5y ago
  To be fair to OC, it’s a massive article and one should assume the most salients points would be presented first.
drew55555 5y ago
Well, you can't really tell if the other group got worse as a whole because it says later in the article that over 80% of the kids not on puberty blockers dropped out of the study so at the end there were only 6 kids left in the study who weren't on puberty blockers.
phnofive 5y ago
There isn't clearly a control group here, but a cohort of 104 kids at the start (of whom seven were already receiving PB/GAH) reduced to 65 (of whom 57 were now receiving PB/GAH) by the end, in twelve months. The supplementary materials explain this in good detail, but it doesn't make intuitive sense to me.

zozbot234 5y ago

A proper control group should be defined as the state-of-the-art alternative, not as "no treatment". The latter is a common ploy used to push substandard, "me too" treatments.

temp8964 5y ago
Shouldn't the control group get placebo treatment? Simply by knowing they have been "treated" could already make them feel better. When the effect you are looking for is a psychological effect, it is even more serious a research design problem.
lupire 5y ago
what is the state of the art alternative, for this?
notahacker 5y ago
What's the "state of the art alternative" to address gender dysphoria in adolescents? Certainly the alternative to puberty blockers or hormones most often advocated is doing nothing. The author makes some perfectly reasonable points about flaws in the study like the large and uneven number of dropouts from the study, likelihood of confounding factors in the nonrandom selection process and oddities in its construction to the extent I'm not sure the study itself can be used as firm evidence of anything, but his insistence that the treatment group not getting worse like the control group can't be evidence for it being beneficial isn't justified either.

lupire 5y ago

Right. Seatbelts and parachutes and water and oxygen don't improve mental health either.

AyyWS 5y ago

Only 6 of 63 in the no treatment group provided data at the end of the study compared to 57 of 69 of the treated provided data. Then there's a bunch of other points. I mean, I feel like you just stopped reading to come to that conclusion.

awb 5y ago
To be fair to OC, it’s a massive article and one should assume the most salients points would be presented first.

drew55555 5y ago

Well, you can't really tell if the other group got worse as a whole because it says later in the article that over 80% of the kids not on puberty blockers dropped out of the study so at the end there were only 6 kids left in the study who weren't on puberty blockers.

phnofive 5y ago

There isn't clearly a control group here, but a cohort of 104 kids at the start (of whom seven were already receiving PB/GAH) reduced to 65 (of whom 57 were now receiving PB/GAH) by the end, in twelve months. The supplementary materials explain this in good detail, but it doesn't make intuitive sense to me.