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Helen Reich's avatar

Thank you, this was excellent. And in fact, I do NOT really understand the difference between effectiveness and efficacy, and I’m going to try to find out what that’s about.

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GeroDoc's avatar

I asked ChatGPT (basically echoes what Tom Jefferson said in the podcast:

“Efficacy refers to the extent to which a treatment or intervention produces a beneficial effect under ideal or controlled conditions, such as in a clinical trial. In other words, it measures the treatment's ability to achieve a specific outcome in a research setting, where the participants are carefully selected and the treatment is administered according to a standardized protocol.

“Effectiveness, on the other hand, refers to the extent to which a treatment or intervention produces a beneficial effect in real-world settings, where the patient population and conditions of use may differ from those in a clinical trial. Effectiveness considers the treatment's ability to achieve a specific outcome in routine clinical practice, where there may be variation in patient characteristics, clinician experience, and adherence to the treatment protocol.”

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