In hypothesis-setting studies of subgroups of low back pain, one set of circumstances where these statistical techniques have been used is with cross-sectional data.
Following the hypothesis-setting observation in ADOPT, the RECORD study steering committee gave permission for analysis of fracture events in that study, though at the time ongoing.
In this context, there has been a proliferation of subgrouping studies in NSLBP, most of which have been hypothesis-setting and they report highly variable methods.
In hypothesis-setting subgrouping analysis of longitudinal data, the most common data-driven approach is the use of 'supervised' statistical techniques.
Therefore, they always require, still within the hypothesis-setting phase, subsequent testing against clinically important outcomes to determine if they are clinically relevant.
Most of the subgrouping studies in low back pain have been hypothesis-setting and they have used highly variable research designs and statistical methods.
The proposed method framework classifies subgrouping studies into six phases of research: studies of assessment methods, hypothesis-setting studies, hypothesis-testing studies, narrow validation studies, broad validation studies, and impact analysis studies.
The proposed method framework proposes six phases for studies of subgroups: studies of assessment methods, hypothesis-setting studies, hypothesis-testing studies, narrow validation studies, broad validation studies, and impact analysis studies.
It does so by adding an initial phase of 'studies of assessment methods', and by splitting the process described by McGinn as 'derivation studies' into two phases: hypothesis-setting studies and hypothesis-testing studies.
The results need to be interpreted very cautiously as this was a hypothesis-setting study with a relatively small sample, none of the potential effect modifications reached statistical significance, and the effects were in the direction opposite to our hypothesis.
