Patient safety may be compromised if study conclusions are generalized to products that make similar claims but have no equivalent research evidence (2 November 2018)

Summary

This paper in the Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management addresses the issue of untested products being used on the basis of 'equivalent' products having undergone regulatory testing. Manufacturers of competing products often use each other’s evidence, arguing that the published evidence is generally applicable even if the original tests and trials were performed on only one specific product. In this study, the authors looked at prophylactic dressings for pressure injury prevention to demonstrate how patient safety may be compromised if study conclusions are projected onto unstudied products.