(Tip for non-epi people: the difference between a case-control and cohort can be hard to get at first, but just look at how they selected their participants. If they picked people based on their outcomes, it's case-control)
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You'd think from the results that they had monitored children over time, recorded when they got a pet, and then followed up years later to find out if they got a diagnosis But remember - this is a CASE-CONTROL study
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What the authors actually did is ASK PEOPLE WITH A CURRENT DIAGNOSIS when they remembered getting a dog as a child This is an inherently flawed approachpic.twitter.com/Kwo4i0guDD
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Imagine asking someone who is currently going through an inpatient admission for acute psychosis when they remember getting a dog as a child, and using that as your exposure variable You see the problem
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So this study didn't even really measure whether people who were diagnosed with schizophrenia were more likely to get dogs as children It measured who was more likely to REMEMBER getting a dog as a childpic.twitter.com/9wIOr6YxN0
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And using the time that they remembered having a dog as the time-point for a longitudinal analysis is...problematic For one thing, you don't have accurate pet death data. You don't actually know how long these people were exposed to pets!
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I'm going to stop here, because while there's more there really isn't much point in going through it allpic.twitter.com/9ZPrh2WLfs
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The fact that the analyses were the wrong way around, the exposure was a bit meaningless, and that the stats were probably misreported is probably enough And yet, the study was published, and got into the NYT *sigh*
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TL:DR - dogs don't prevent schizophrenia - schizophrenia may prevent dogs - even then, probably not - this study is a mess
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If you want more info,
@statsepi and@ADAlthousePhD explain really well in this thread:https://twitter.com/statsepi/status/1220015078726098944?s=20 …Show this thread
End of conversation
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