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Glossary of terms used in health research - D

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  • Data and safety monitoring board
    • Wikipedia
      An impartial group that oversees a clinical trial and reviews the results to see if they are acceptable. This group determines if the trial should be changed or closed. Also called DSMB.
      An independent committee, composed of community representatives and clinical research experts, that reviews data while a clinical trial is in progress to ensure that participants are not exposed to undue risk. A DSMB may recommend that a trial be stopped if there are safety concerns or if the trial objectives have been achieved.
      An independent data monitoring committee that may be established by the sponsor to assess at intervals the progress of a clinical trial, the safety data, and the critical efficacy endpoints, and to recommend to the sponsor whether to continue, modify, or stop a trial.
  • Data clarification form
    • Wikipedia
      A data clarification form (DCF) or data query form (DQF) is a questionnaire specifically used in clinical research. The DCF is the primary data clarification tool from the trial sponsor or contract research organization (CRO) towards the investigator to clarify discrepancies and ask the investigator for clarification. The DCF is part of the data validation process in a clinical trial.
  • Data cleansing
    • Wikipedia
      Data cleansing or data scrubbing is the act of detecting and correcting (or removing) corrupt or inaccurate records from a record set, table, or database. Used mainly in databases, the term refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate, irrelevant etc. parts of the data and then replacing, modifying or deleting this dirty data.
  • Data collection
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      A term used to describe a process of preparing and collecting data - for example as part of a process improvement or similar project.
      Systematic gathering of data for a particular purpose from various sources, including questionnaires, interviews, observation, existing records, and electronic devices. The process is usually preliminary to statistical analysis of the data.
  • Data dredging
    • Wikipedia
      Performing many analyses on the data from a study, for example looking for associations among many variables. Particularly used to refer to unplanned analyses, where there is no apparent hypothesis, and only statistically significant results are reported.
  • Data management
    • Wikipedia
      Data management is the development, execution and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that control, protect, deliver and enhance the value of data and information assets.
  • Data monitoring committee
    • Wikipedia
      An expert committee set up to monitor the results of a continuing trial periodically, and assess whether or not the trial should continue or stop on ethical grounds, that is, if a treatment appears to be dramatically effective or harmful, and providing it or denying it to half the participants has become unethical.
  • Data pooling
    • Crude summation of the raw data with no weighting, to be distinguished from Crude summation of the raw data with no weighting, to be distinguished from meta-analysis).
  • Data set
    • Wikipedia
      A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data, usually presented in tabular form. Each column represents a particular variable. Each row corresponds to a given member of the data set in question.
  • Data validation
    • Wikipedia
      In computer science, data validation is the process of ensuring that a program operates on clean, correct and useful data. It uses routines, often called "validation rules" or "check routines", that check for correctness, meaningfulness, and security of data that are input to the system.
  • Database
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      An organized collection of data for one or more multiple uses.
      Organized collections of computer records, standardized in format and content, that are stored in any of a variety of computer-readable modes. They are the basic sets of data from which computer-readable files are created.
      Database [MeSH - publication type]: work consisting of a structured file of information or a set of logically related data stored and retrieved using computer-based means.
  • Database management system
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      A set of computer programs that controls the creation, maintenance, and the use of a database.
      Software designed to store, manipulate, manage, and control data for specific uses.
  • Day care
    • MeSH
      Medical and paramedical services delivered to patients that are formally admitted for diagnosis, treatment or other types of health care with the intention of discharging the patient the same day.
      Institutional health care of patients during the day. The patients return home at night.
  • Death-to-case ratio
    • The number of deaths attributed to a particular disease during a specified time period divided by the number of new cases of that disease identified during the same time period.
  • Decimal places
    • We always precede decimal points with an integer. Numbers needing treatment to obtain one additional beneficial outcome (NNTs) are rounded up to whole numbers e.g. an NNT of 2.6 would become 3. Numbers needing treatment to obtain one additional harmful outcome (NNHs) are rounded down to whole numbers e.g., an NNH of 2.3 would become 2. For P values, we use a maximum of three noughts after the decimal: P < 0.0001. We try to report the number of decimal places up to the number of noughts in the trial population e.g., 247 people, with RR 4.837 would be rounded up to 4.84. We avoid use of more than three significant figures.
  • Decision aid
    • A tool that endeavors to present patients with the benefits and harms of alternative courses of action in a manner that is quantitative, comprehensive, and understandable.
  • Decision analysis
    • Wikipedia
      A technique that formally identifies the options in a decision-making process, quantifies the probable outcomes (and costs) of each (and the uncertainty around them), determines the option that best meets the objectives of the decision-maker and assesses the robustness of this conclusion.
  • Decision making
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      The mental processes (cognitive process) resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternatives.
      The process of making a selective intellectual judgment when presented with several complex alternatives consisting of several variables, and usually defining a course of action or an idea.
  • Decision support techniques
    • MeSH
      Mathematical or statistical procedures used as aids in making a decision. They are frequently used in medical decision-making.
  • Decision tree
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      Most clinical decision analyses are built as decision trees, and the articles usually will include one or more diagrams showing the structure of the decision tree used for the analysis.
      A graphic device used in decision analysis, series of decision options are represented as branches (hierarchical).
  • Defensive medicine
    • MeSH -  Wikipedia
      Defensive medicine is the practice of diagnostic or therapeutic measures conducted primarily not to ensure the health of the patient, but as a safeguard against possible malpractice liability.
      The alterations of modes of medical practice, induced by the threat of liability, for the principal purposes of forestalling lawsuits by patients as well as providing good legal defense in the event that such lawsuits are instituted.
  • Degrees of belief
    • One of the three major interpretations of probability (besides relative frequencies and propensities). The probability of an event is the subjective degree of belief a person has in that event. Historically, degrees of warranted belief entered probability theory from applications in the courtroom, such as the credibility of witnesses. Degrees of belief are constrained by the laws of probability (for example, probabilities need to add up to 1), that is, beliefs need to follow these laws to qualify as subjective probabilities.
  • Degrees of freedom
    • Wikipedia
      A concept that refers to the number of independent contributions to a sampling distribution (such as chi-squared distribution). In a contingency table, it is one less than the number of row categories multiplied by one less than the number of column categories; e.g. a 2 x 2 table comparing two groups for a dichotomous outcome, such as death, has one degree of freedom.
  • Delivery of health care
    • MeSH
      The concept concerned with all aspects of providing and distributing health services to a patient population.
  • Demographic information
    • The "person'' characteristics--age, sex, race, and occupation--of descriptive epidemiology used to characterize the populations at risk.
  • Demographic transition
    • Wikipedia
      Refers to a change in birth and death rates. As countries develop, they move through various stages of demographic transition: from virtually stagnant rates (high birth and death rates) to rapid growth (high birth rates, low death rates) and then to a stable low growth rate when both births and deaths are low.
      The historical shift of birth and death rates from high to low levels in a population. The decline of mortality usually precedes the decline in fertility, thus resulting in rapid population growth during the transition period.
  • Demography
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      The statistical study of human populations.
      The scientific study of human populations, including their sizes, compositions, distributions, densities, growth, and other characteristics, as well as the causes and consequences of changes in these factors.
      Statistical interpretation and description of a population with reference to distribution, composition, or structure.
  • Denominator
    • The lower portion of a fraction used to calculate a rate or ratio. In a rate, the denominator is usually the population (or population experience, as in person-years, etc.) at risk.
  • Density of community health workers
    • Number of community health workers per 10,000 population.
  • Density of environment and public health workers
    • Number of environment and public health workers per 10,000 population.
  • Density of nursing and midwifery personnel
    • Number of nursing and midwifery personnel per 10,000 population.
  • Density of other health service providers
    • Number of other health service providers (excepting physicians, nursing and midwifery personnel, dentistry personnel and community health workers) per 10,000 population.
  • Density of physicians
    • Number of medical doctors (physicians), including generalist and specialist medical practitioners, per 10,000 population.
  • Deontological
    • Wikipedia
      A deontological approach to distributive justice holds that the clinician’s only responsibility should be to best meet the needs of the individual under his or her care. An alternative to the consequentialist or utilitarian view.
      A duty-based theoretical approach to ethics, associated with the philosopher Kant. Right actions stem from freely embraced obligations to universal moral imperatives, such as the obligation to respect persons as ends and not as means.
  • Dependency ratio
    • Wikipedia
      The average number of economically dependent population per 100 economically productive population, for a given country, territory, or geographic area, at a specific point in time. In demographic terms, economically dependent population is defined as the sum of the population under 15 years of age plus the population 65 years of age and over, for a given country, territory, or geographic area, at a specific point in time, usually mid-year; economically productive population is defined as the population between 15 and 64 years of age, for the same country, territory, or geographic area, at the same specific point in time.
      It is the ratio of the dependents (65 years and above) to those in the “economically productive” age group (15-64 years) i.e. number of persons aged 65 years and above per 100 persons between 15 and 64 years. Dependency Ratio also includes persons under 15 years age group.
      The ratio of the economically dependent part of the population to the productive part; arbitrarily defined as the ratio of the elderly (ages 65 and older) plus the young (under age 15) to the population in the working ages (ages 15-64).
  • Dependent variable
    • Wikipedia
      The outcome or response that results from changes to an independent variable. In a clinical trial, the outcome (over which the investigator has no direct control) is the dependent variable, and the treatment arm is the independent variable. The dependent variable is traditionally plotted on the vertical axis on graphs. (Also called outcome variable.)
      In a statistical analysis, the outcome variable(s) or the variable(s) whose values are a function of other variable(s) (called independent variable(s) in the relationship under study).
  • Depopulation
    • Wikipedia
      Depopulation (also known as population decline) is a term used to describe any great reduction in a human population.
      The state of population decline.
  • Descriptive bibliography
    • MeSH
      The area of bibliography which makes known precisely the material conditions of books, i.e., the full name of the author, the exact title of the work, the date and place of publication, the publisher's and printer's names, the format, the pagination, typographical particulars, illustrations, and the price, and for old books, other characteristics such as the kind of paper, binding, etc. It is also called analytical bibliography and physical bibliography.
  • Descriptive epidemiology
    • The aspect of epidemiology concerned with organizing and summarizing health-related data according to time, place, and person.
  • Descriptive statistics
    • Wikipedia
      Statistics designed to summarize and describe characteristics of the data. Descriptive statistics helps us to make sense of a large volume of data.
  • Descriptive study
    • A study that describes characteristics of a sample of individuals. Unlike an experimental study, the investigators do not actively intervene to test a hypothesis, but merely describe the health status or characteristics of a sample from a defined population.
  • Design
    • Wikipedia
      A design is a plan which indicates how often, when and from whom information will be gathered during the course of an evaluation. Good design is essential if the results of an evaluation are to have any future use. A design with at least one experimental group and one control group is known as a control group design; a time-series design uses only one experimental group but at least three data collections; and a design which does not use a control group or time series analysis is the pre- and post- design.
  • Design effect
    • Wikipedia
      A number that describes how much larger a sample is needed in designs such as cluster randomized trials to achieve the same precision as a simple random sample. It is the ratio of the true variance of a statistic (taking the sampling design into account) to the variance of the statistic for a simple random sample with the same number of cases.
      A specific form of bias attributable to intraclass correlation in cluster sampling. The design effect for a cluster design is the ratio of the variance for that design to the variance calculated from a simple random sample of the same size.
  • Detection bias
    • Wikipedia
      Systematic difference between comparison groups in how outcomes are ascertained, diagnosed or verified. (Also called ascertainment bias.)
  • Determinant
    • Wikipedia
      Any definable factor that effects a change in a health condition or other characteristic.
      Any factor, whether event, characteristic, or other definable entity, that brings about change in a health condition, or in other defined characteristics.
  • Deterministic method of allocation
    • A method of allocating participants to interventions that uses a pre-determined rule without a random element (e.g., alternate assignment, based on day of week, hospital number, or date of birth). Because group assignments can be predicted in advance of assignment in deterministic methods, participant allocation may be manipulated, causing selection bias.
  • Device approval
    • MeSH
      Process that is gone through in order for a device to receive approval by a government regulatory agency. This includes any required preclinical or clinical testing, review, submission, and evaluation of the applications and test results, and post-marketing surveillance. It is not restricted to FDA.
  • Diagnosis-related group
    • MeSH
      A way of categorizing patients according to diagnosis and intensity of resources required, usually for the period of one hospital stay.
      A system for classifying patient care by relating common characteristics such as diagnosis, treatment, and age to an expected consumption of hospital resources and length of stay. Its purpose is to provide a framework for specifying case mix and to reduce hospital costs and reimbursements and it forms the cornerstone of the prospective payment system.
  • Diagnostic error
    • MeSH
      Incorrect diagnoses after clinical examination or technical diagnostic procedures.
  • Diagnostic test approval
    • MeSH
      The process of gaining approval by a government regulatory agency for diagnostic reagents and test kits. This includes any required preclinical or clinical testing, review, submission, and evaluation of the applications and test results, and post-marketing surveillance.
  • Diagnostic trials
    • Wikipedia
      Refers to trials that are conducted to find better tests or procedures for diagnosing a particular disease or condition. Diagnostic trials usually include people who have signs or symptoms of the disease or condition being studied.
  • Dichotomous data
    • Data that can take one of two possible values, such as dead/alive, smoker/non-smoker, present/not present. (Also called binary data.) Sometimes continuous data or ordinal data are simplified into dichotomous data (e.g. age in years could become <75 years or ≥75 years).
  • Dichotomous variable
    • A variable that can take one of two discrete values rather than values incrementally placed along a continuum (e.g., male or female, pregnant or not pregnant, dead or alive).
  • Dictionary
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      A dictionary, also referred to as a lexicon, wordbook, or vocabulary, is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon.
      Dictionary [MeSH - publication type]: a reference book containing a list of words - usually in alphabetical order - giving information about form, pronunciation, etymology, grammar, and meaning. A foreign-language dictionary is an alphabetical list of words of one language with their meaning and equivalents in another language.
  • Differential diagnosis
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      The set of diagnoses that can plausibly explain a patient’s presentation.
      Determination of which one of two or more diseases or conditions a patient is suffering from by systematically comparing and contrasting results of diagnostic measures.
  • Differential verification bias
    • When test results influence the choice of the reference standard (e.g., test-positive patients undergo an invasive test to establish the diagnosis, whereas test-negative patients undergo long-term follow-up without application of the invasive test), the assessment of test properties may be biased.
  • Diffusion research
    • The study of the factors necessary for successful adoption and implementation by additional stakeholders and the targeted population of an evidence-based intervention that has been successfully implemented in some sites, resulting in widespread use.
  • Direct access
    • Permission to examine, analyze, verify, and reproduce any records and reports that are important to evaluation of a clinical trial. Any party (e.g., domestic and foreign regulatory authorities, sponsors, monitors, and auditors) with direct access should take all reasonable precautions within the constraints of the applicable regulatory requirement(s) to maintain the confidentiality of subjects' identities and sponsor's proprietary information.
  • Directional research hypothesis
    • The research hypothesis outlining a relationship may be directional or non-directional. For example, a relationship between smoking and cardiovascular disease can only be directional. It is expected in the hypothesis that it will increase cardiovascular disease. The relationship between oral hormonal contraceptives and certain disease conditions can be non-directional. The disease conditions may increase or decrease as a result of oral hormonal contraceptive use.
  • Directory
    • MeSH
      Lists of persons or organizations, systematically arranged, usually in alphabetic or classed order, giving address, affiliations, etc., for individuals, and giving address, officers, functions, and similar data for organizations.
      Directory [MeSH - publication type]: work consisting of an alphabetical or classified list of names, organizations, subjects, etc., giving usually titles, addresses, affiliations, and other professional data.
  • Disability-adjusted life years (DALY)
    • Wikipedia
      An international measure of the burden of disease that expresses both time lost through premature death and time lived with a disability.
      A method for measuring disease burden, which aims to quantify in a single figure both the quantity and quality of life lost or gained by a disease, risk factor, or treatment. The DALYs lost or gained are a function of the expected number of years spent in a particular state of health, multiplied by a coefficient determined by the disability experienced in that state (ranging from 0 [optimal health] to 1 [deaths]). Later years are discounted at a rate of 3% per year, and childhood and old age are weighted to count for less.
      A unit for measuring both the global burden of disease and the effectiveness of health interventions, as indicated by reductions in the disease burden. It is calculated as the present value of the future years of disability-free life that are lost as the result of the premature deaths or cases of disability occurring in a particular year.
  • Disbenefits
    • Disbenefits are adverse effects on health or its determinants consequent on implementing a proposal.
  • Discharge
    • The official termination of a patient’s stay in a hospital or other medical facility to which one has been admitted.
  • Disclosure
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      Disclosure means the giving out of information, either voluntarily or to be in compliance with legal regulations or workplace rules.
      Revealing of information, by oral or written communication.
  • Discounting
    • Wikipedia
      Refers to the process of adjusting the value of costs or benefits that occur at different points of time in the future so that they may all be compared as if they had occurred at the same time. Discounting is necessary if there is a preference to defer costs until tomorrow or to enjoy benefits today (positive time preference). The discount rate describes the “interest rate” with which the present value of future costs and benefits is estimated. There is little agreement over what discount rate to use, but to ensure comparability Gold et al recommend using 3% in the base case and 5% in a sensitivity analysis.
  • Discrete or discontinuous data
    • Numerical variables that are not measured on a continuous scale.
  • Discriminant analysis
    • MeSH
      A statistical analytic technique used with discrete dependent variables, concerned with separating sets of observed values and allocating new values. It is sometimes used instead of regression analysis.
  • Disease-free survival
    • MeSH
      Period after successful treatment in which there is no appearance of the symptoms or effects of the disease.
  • Disease management
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      Refers to the processes and people concerned with improving or maintaining health in large populations. It is concerned with common chronic illnesses, and the reduction of future complications associated with those diseases.
      A broad approach to appropriate coordination of the entire disease treatment process that often involves shifting away from more expensive inpatient and acute care to areas such as preventive medicine, patient counseling and education, and outpatient care. This concept includes implications of appropriate versus inappropriate therapy on the overall cost and clinical outcome of a particular disease.
  • Disease notification
    • MeSH
      Notification or reporting by a physician or other health care provider of the occurrence of specified contagious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV infections to designated public health agencies. The United States system of reporting notifiable diseases evolved from the Quarantine Act of 1878, which authorized the US Public Health Service to collect morbidity data on cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever; each state in the US has its own list of notifiable diseases and depends largely on reporting by the individual health care provider.
  • Disease registry
    • Wikipedia
      Disease registries are collections of secondary data related to patients with a specific diagnosis, condition, or procedure.
  • Disease-specific health-related quality of life
    • Disease-specific HRQL measures evaluate the full range of patients’ problems and experiences relevant to a specific condition or disease.
  • Disease surveillance
    • Wikipedia
      Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression.
  • Disentanglement strategies
    • Disentanglement strategies seek to establish structures and systems that protect independent research and reviews that are free from the influence of vested interests.
  • Dispensary
    • Wikipedia
      A specialized ambulatory facility which can be assigned to a hospital or serve as an independent institution.
  • Dissemination research
    • The study of how the targeted distribution of information and intervention materials to a specific audience can be successfully executed so that increased spread of this knowledge achieves greater use and has increased impact.
  • Distribution
    • The collection of values of a variable in the population or the sample, sometimes called an empirical distribution.
      The complete summary of the frequencies of the values or categories of a measurement made on a group of persons. The distribution tells either how many or what proportion of the group was found to have each value (or range of values) out of all the possible values that the quantitative measure can have.
      In epidemiology, the frequency and pattern of health-related characteristics and events in a population. In statistics, the observed or theoretical frequency of values of a variable.
  • Distribution of causes of death among children aged <5 years
    • Distribution of main causes of death among children aged < 5 years, expressed as percentage of total deaths. The causes of death refers to the concept of the 'underlying cause of death' as defined by ICD-10 (WHO, 1992).
  • Distribution of years of life lost by broader causes
    • Distribution of years of life lost by broader causes, expressed as percentage of total of years of life lost.
  • Distributive justice
    • An ethical principle implying that participation in the research should correlate with expected benefits. No population group should carry an undue burden of research for the benefit of another group.
  • Divorce demography
    • Wikipedia
      Divorce demography is the measurement of the frequency of marriage and divorce. It is most commonly measured in three different ways: the current marriage to current divorce ratio, the crude divorce rate, and the refined divorce rate.
      The current marriage to current divorce ratio measures the divorce rate by comparing the number of marriages to the number of divorces in a given year. The crude divorce rate is the number of divorces per 1,000 population. The refined divorce rate measures the number of divorces per 1,000 women married to men, and is the better of the three measurement methods.
  • Documentation
    • MeSH Wikipedia
      All records, in any form (including, but not limited to, written, electronic, magnetic, and optical records; and scans, x-rays, and electrocardiograms) that describe or record the methods, conduct, and/or results of a trial, the factors affecting a trial, and the actions taken.
      Systematic organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of specialized information, especially of a scientific or technical nature. It often involves authenticating or validating information.
  • Dose
    • Wikipedia
      The amount of medicine taken, or radiation given, at one time.
  • Dose dependent
    • Wikipedia
      A response to a drug which may be related to the amount received (i.e. the dose). Sometimes trials are done to test the effect of different dosages of the same drug. This may be true for both benefits and harms.
      Refers to the effects of treatment with a drug. If the effects change when the dose of the drug is changed, the effects are said to be dose-dependent.
  • Dose-limiting
    • Describes side effects of a drug or other treatment that are serious enough to prevent an increase in dose or level of that treatment.
  • Dose-ranging study
    • Wikipedia
      A clinical trial in which two or more doses of an agent (such as a drug) are tested against each other to determine which dose works best and is least harmful.
  • Dose-rate
    • The strength of a treatment given over a period of time.
  • Dose response relationship
    • Wikipedia
      The relationship between the quantity of treatment given and its effect on outcome. In meta-analysis, dose-response relationships can be investigated using meta-regression.
  • Dot plot
    • Wikipedia
      A visual display of the actual data points of a noncontinuous variable.
  • Double-blind study
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      A clinical trial design in which neither the participating individuals nor the study staff knows which participants are receiving the experimental drug and which are receiving a placebo (or another therapy). Double-blind trials are thought to produce objective results, since the expectations of the doctor and the participant about the experimental drug do not affect the outcome; also called double-masked study.
      A clinical trial in which neither the medical staff nor the person knows which of several possible therapies the person is receiving.
      A method of studying a drug or procedure in which both the subjects and investigators are kept unaware of who is actually getting which specific treatment.
  • Double-dummy
    • A technique for retaining the blind when administering supplies in a clinical trial, when the two treatments cannot be made identical. Supplies are prepared for Treatment A (active and indistinguishable placebo) and for Treatment B (active and indistinguishable placebo). Subjects then take two sets of treatment; either A (active) and B (placebo), or A (placebo) and B (active).
  • Double effect principle
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      The principle of double effect; also known as the rule of double effect; the doctrine of double effect, abbreviated to DDE; double-effect reasoning; or simply double effect, is a set of ethical criteria for evaluating the permissibility of acting when one's otherwise legitimate act (for example, relieving a terminally ill patient's pain) will also cause an effect one would normally be obliged to avoid (for example, the patient's death.)
      Guideline for determining when it is morally permissible to perform an action to pursue a good end with knowledge that the action will also bring about bad results. It generally states that, in cases where a contemplated action has such double effect, the action is permissible only if: it is not wrong in itself; the bad result is not intended; the good result is not a direct causal result of the bad result; and the good result is "proportionate to" the bad result.
  • Doubling time
    • Wikipedia
      The doubling time is the period of time required for a quantity to double in size or value.
      The number of years required for the population of an area to double its present size, given the current rate of population growth.
  • Downstream costs
    • Costs due to resources consumed in the future and associated with clinical events in the future that are attributable to the intervention.
  • Drillability
    • Refers to the ability to trace a statement from its most condensed form through to the original evidence that supports it. This requires not only the data but also all the methods used in the generation of the condensed form to be explicit and reproducible. We see it as an important component of the quality of evidence-based publications.
  • Dropout
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      A subject in a clinical trial who for any reason fails to continue in the trial until the last visit required of him/her by the study protocol.
      Also called patient dropout.
  • Drug
    • Wikipedia
      Any substance, other than food, that is used to prevent, diagnose, treat or relieve symptoms of a disease or abnormal condition. Also refers to a substance that alters mood or body function, or that can be habit-forming or addictive, especially a narcotic.
  • Drug approval
    • MeSH
      Process that is gone through in order for a drug to receive approval by a government regulatory agency. This includes any required pre-clinical or clinical testing, review, submission, and evaluation of the applications and test results, and post-marketing surveillance of the drug.
  • Drug class effects
    • Similar effects produced by most or all members of a class of drugs (e.g., beta blockers, calcium antagonists, or angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors).
  • Drug design
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      Drug design, also sometimes referred to as rational drug design, is the inventive process of finding new medications based on the knowledge of the biological target.
      The molecular designing of drugs for specific purposes (such as DNA-binding, enzyme inhibition, anti-cancer efficacy, etc.) based on knowledge of molecular properties such as activity of functional groups, molecular geometry, and electronic structure, and also on information cataloged on analogous molecules. Drug design is generally computer-assisted molecular modeling and does not include pharmacokinetics, dosage analysis, or drug administration analysis.
  • Drug development
    • Wikipedia
      Drug development is a blanket term used to define the entire process of bringing a new drug or device to the market. It includes drug discovery / product development, pre-clinical research (microorganisms/animals) and clinical trials (on humans).
  • Drug discovery
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      In the fields of medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which drugs are discovered and/or designed.
      The process of finding chemicals for potential therapeutic use.
  • Drug dose-response relationship
    • MeSH
      The relationship between the dose of an administered drug and the response of the organism to the drug.
  • Drug evaluation
    • MeSH
      Any process by which toxicity, metabolism, absorption, elimination, preferred route of administration, safe dosage range, etc., for a drug or group of drugs is determined through clinical assessment in humans or veterinary animals.
  • Drug interaction
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      A situation in which a substance affects the activity of a drug, i.e. the effects are increased or decreased, or they produce a new effect that neither produces on its own.
      The action of a drug that may affect the activity, metabolism, or toxicity of another drug.
  • Drug monitoring
    • MeSH
      The process of observing, recording, or detecting the effects of a chemical substance administered to an individual therapeutically or diagnostically.
  • Drug repositioning
    • Wikipedia
      Drug repositioning (also known as drug repurposing, drug re-profiling, therapeutic switching and drug re-tasking) is the application of known drugs and compounds to new indications (i.e., new diseases).
  • Drug toxicity
    • MeSH
      Manifestations of the adverse effects of drugs administered therapeutically or in the course of diagnostic techniques. It does not include accidental or intentional poisoning for which specific headings are available.
  • Duplicate publication
    • MeSH - Wikipedia
      Publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published by the same authors.
      Simultaneous or successive publishing of identical or near- identical material in two or more different sources without acknowledgment. It differs from reprinted publication in that a reprint cites sources. it differs from plagiarism in that duplicate publication is the product of the same authorship while plagiarism publishes a work or parts of a work of another as one's own.
      Duplicate publication [MeSH - publication type]: work consisting of an article or book of identical or nearly identical material published simultaneously or successively to material previously published elsewhere, without acknowledgment of the prior publication.
  • Duplication
    • Trials can be reported more than once, a process known as duplication. Duplication can be justified, for instance where results from a study at two years are followed later by results at four years. Another example might be reporting different results from a single trials (clinical or economic, for instance). But multiple publication can also be covert, and lead to over-estimation of the amount of information available.
  • Duty to recontact
    • MeSH
      The ethical and/or legal obligation of a health provider or researcher to communicate with a former patient or research subject about advances in research relevant to a treatment or to a genetic or other diagnostic test provided earlier, or about proposed new uses of blood or tissue samples taken in the past for another purpose.
  • Duty to warn
    • MeSH
      A health professional's obligation to breach patient confidentiality to warn third parties of the danger of their being assaulted or of contracting a serious infection.