GLOSSARY
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Approach | The system of methods and principles used in a particular discipline |
| Aseptic meningitis | A syndrome characterized by headache, neck stiffness, low grade fever, and CSF lymphocytic pleiocytosis in the absence of an acute bacterial pathogen. Viral meningitis is the most frequent cause although mycoplasma, and rickettsia infections; diagnostic or therapeutic procedures; neoplastic procedures; septic perimeningeal foci; and other conditions may result in this syndrome. (From Adams et al., Principles of Neurology, 6th ed, p745) |
| Aspect ratio | The ratio of the lengths of the two axes on a graph; a square graph has an aspect ratio of 1 |
| Benefit | The positive results of a given treatment for an individual or a population (i.e., efficacy, convenience, or even quality of life) |
| Benefit-risk assessment | An evaluation of medical product either quantitatively or qualitatively taking both benefits and risks of the product into account |
| Benefit-risk model | A formal way to analyse benefit and risk consequences and their balances from a set of actions and to aid making choices amongst actions when risk aversion and preferences are specified |
| Bias | The systematic tendency of any factors associated with the design, conduct, analysis, and evaluation of the results of a benefit-risk assessment to make the estimate of a treatment effect deviate from its true value |
| Clinical trial | A research study of a patient population to answer specific questions of medical interest through intervention |
| Cognition | The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses |
| Confounding factors | Factors that affect the outcome together with other factors / predictors |
| Conjoint analysis | An umbrella term which refers to techniques that look at the individual contribution of attributes to overall value; such exercises may be ranking, rating, or choice based exercises |
| Criterion | A standard by which the performance of a methodology and the alternatives can be judged or decided |
| Data-ink ratio | The proportion of a graphic's ink devoted to the non-redundant display of data information. |
| Effectiveness | The extent to which an intervention provides a therapeutic benefit when given under the usual circumstances |
| Efficacy | The extent to which an intervention provides a therapeutic benefit under ideal circumstances |
| Elicitation | The process through which relevant notions for a problem of interest are made explicit |
| Extension Clinical Study (Long Term) | The follow-up (long-term of 1-2 years) of short-term comparative studies, where the comparator's arm is abandoned (e.g., in some designs, the patients in the comparator's arm may move to the active medication arm) |
| Framework | TA structured stepwise approach to perform a task |
| Graphical methods/ representation | The principles and procedures to present some numerical features or relations by a graph |
| Greyscale | The shades in the black and white spectrum with no other colours |
| Haemolytic anaemia | A form of anaemia due to haemolysis, the abnormal breakdown of red blood cells (RBCs), either intravascular or extravascular |
| Health technology assessment | An analysis of the medical, economic, social, and ethical implications of the incremental value, diffusion, and use of a medical technology in health care |
| Hue | The dominant colour; higher hue of a primary colour gives the perception that the object appears with the shades of that colour |
| Incidence | The frequency of the first occurrence of an event or a condition in a specified period |
| Line pattern | The look of a line which could be, e.g., solid, dash, dot |
| Measurement | A process of establishing the correspondence between a property of the world and a number system |
| Measures | A metric or measurement. |
| Methodology | The system of methods and principles used in a particular discipline |
| Metric | A system of measurement |
| Opportunistic Infections | An opportunistic infection is an infection caused by pathogens, such as bacterial, viral, fungal or protozoan infections that usually do not cause disease in a healthy host. A compromised immune system, however, presents an "opportunity" for the pathogen to infect. |
| Part-to-whole | A representation of smaller entities (part) in the construction of the larger entity (whole). |
| Perception | The way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted, i.e., the translation of sense impressions into meaningful experiences of the outside world |
| Pharmacoepidemiology | The study of the use and effects of drugs in well-defined populations |
| Preference values | A quantitative measure of the extent to which an outcome achieves an objective, as judged by an individual or group. The value or utility associated with a score; preference values or utilities are judged by assessors to reflect the clinical relevance of effects or outcomes |
| Qualitative benefit-risk assessment | In a qualitative benefit-risk assessment, the clinical relevance of the evidence and the trade-offs between the safety and efficacy effects may be judged but are not quantified |
| Quantitative | Involving considerations of amount or size; capable of being measured |
| Quantitative benefit-risk assessment | In a partially quantitative benefit-risk assessment, the clinical relevance of the evidence, and the trade-offs between the favourable and unfavourable effects are quantified. A fully quantitative benefit-risk assessment goes a step further by mathematically aggregating the favourable effects, the unfavourable effects, and the trade-off values into a measure of the benefit-risk balance. |
| Rates | The relative frequency of an event in a given time period |
| Reference point | An anchor on the visual, usually refers to meaningful values on the scale to aid information extraction |
| Reproducibility | A process or a set of results/decisions is reproducible if the steps involved and parameters used in the process are clearly defined and stated so that the process can be repeated by someone else |
| Revealed preference | An approach which observes and explores preferences as indirectly revealed by an individual's action(s) within real life situations |
| Risk | The negative results (adverse outcomes) of a given treatment for an individual or a population in terms of probability of occurrence having considered the magnitude of severity |
| Safety | The safety of a medical product concerns the medical risk to the subject (e.g., assessed in a clinical trial by laboratory tests (including clinical chemistry and haematology), vital signs, clinical adverse events (diseases, signs, and symptoms), and other special safety tests) |
| Saturation | The purity of primary colours in relation to the wavelengths; narrower wavelengths are more saturated than wider wavelengths |
| Score | The numeric values with fixed minimum and maximum (bounded scales) assigned to distinguish, e.g., magnitude, severity, performance, preference. A measure of a real world effect or outcome |
| Serious Infections | Infections which are fatal, or life-threatening, or requires inpatient hospitalisation or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability, or is a significant medical event. |
| Stated preference | An approach which asks individuals to state their preferences within hypothetical scenarios |
| Uncertainty | Uncertainty may refer to: |
| Utility | A subjective measurement that describes a person's or group's preferences (e.g., satisfaction, risk attitude) for an effect or outcome |
| Value function | A function which converts the input data (parameters) in all criteria into preference value or utility for the options under evaluation |
| Value judgement | A subjective assessment for appropriateness of values or utility in a decision making problem |
| Value tree | A visual map, in a hierarchical diagram, of the benefits and risks that are being considered for the analysis; also referred to as an attribute or effects tree |
| Visual methods / representation | The principles and procedures to present some numerical features or relations by a graph |
| Weight | The scaling constants assigned to criteria such that the units of scaled preference values across all criteria are equal |