Restriction is simple and easy to understand and can at least partially eliminate the influence of a confounding factor. We restrict our study population to individuals with certain characteristics by tightening the eligibility criteria. For example, we could include nonsmokers younger than 60 years of age to remove the effect of smoking and older age. Restriction can be used to address a limited number of confounders. This usually involves selecting patients with specific characteristics to have a more homogeneous study population, but this comes at the expense of external validity and loss of generalizability.
- Trisha Gao on 2008-03-16