A Bayesian elicitation of veterinary beliefs regarding systemic dry cow therapy: variation and importance for clinical trial design.

Preventive Veterinary Medicine
H M HigginsM J Green

Abstract

The two key aims of this research were: (i) to conduct a probabilistic elicitation to quantify the variation in veterinarians' beliefs regarding the efficacy of systemic antibiotics when used as an adjunct to intra-mammary dry cow therapy and (ii) to investigate (in a Bayesian statistical framework) the strength of future research evidence required (in theory) to change the beliefs of practising veterinary surgeons regarding the efficacy of systemic antibiotics, given their current clinical beliefs. The beliefs of 24 veterinarians in 5 practices in England were quantified as probability density functions. Classic multidimensional scaling revealed major variations in beliefs both within and between veterinary practices which included: confident optimism, confident pessimism and considerable uncertainty. Of the 9 veterinarians interviewed holding further cattle qualifications, 6 shared a confidently pessimistic belief in the efficacy of systemic therapy and whilst 2 were more optimistic, they were also more uncertain. A Bayesian model based on a synthetic dataset from a randomised clinical trial (showing no benefit with systemic therapy) predicted how each of the 24 veterinarians' prior beliefs would alter as the size of the clin...Continue Reading

References

Jul 15, 1994·Statistics in Medicine·M K ParmarL S Freedman
Dec 13, 2000·Statistics in Medicine·D Ashby, A F Smith
Sep 1, 2009·Journal of Clinical Epidemiology·Sindhu R JohnsonBrian M Feldman

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Citations

Mar 7, 2021·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health·Danila AzzolinaIleana Baldi

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BRugs
R environment
R Development Core Team

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