2b: Evidence obtained from at least one other type of well designed quasi-experimental study
Quasi-experimental study: A non-randomized pre-post intervention study.
A quasi-experimental study is usually performed due to:
ethical considerations
inability to randomize patients/ locations
the need to intervene quickly.
Although quite popular, they lack the internal validity of true experimental studies- RCTs. This is largely due to the inability to adjust for known and unknown confounders by employing randomization.
There are many types of quasi-experimental studies. Details of such studies may be found in the following article:
A different take on such studies may be found here:
Click to access 119_Fisk_quasi-experimental%20design%202004.pdf
These study designs are rated above observational study designs because they are ‘experimental’ in nature- they allow testing of a hypothesis. However, causality cannot be directly inferred from such studies (unlike in true experimental study designs).
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