
Users' Guides to the Medical Literature EDUCATION GUIDES

GLOSSARY
Baseline characteristics
Factors that describe study participants at the beginning of the study (eg, age, sex, disease severity); in comparison studies, it is important that...
Continue readingFactors that describe study participants at the beginning of the study (eg, age, sex, disease severity); in comparison studies, it is important that these characteristics be initially similar between groups; if not balanced or if the imbalance is not statistically adjusted, these characteristics can cause confounding and can bias study results.