Statistical Question Regarding Recent Pertussis Study

Nurses General Nursing

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An interesting article regarding a recent pertussis study came out the other day: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1200850

In the study, they state, "We compared 277 children, 4 to 12 years of age, who were PCR-positive for pertussis with 3318 PCR-negative controls and 6086 matched controls."

I'm not sure I understand the part about the 6086 matched controls. What are these 6086 matched controls? Would they have been negative or positive for pertussis? Not sure if this is relevant, but when I first read the article on Medscape, it stated that all three groups of children who were in the study had been vaccinated against pertussis.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Is this homework????

Definition: matched study, matched control

a comparison between groups in which each subject animal is matched by a comparable subject in terms of age and all other measurable parameters. Called also matched or paired control.

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No, it is not homework. I have already had my statistics course. This was simply out of curiosity, as we did not go over matched controls in my course, and I'm trying to understand how this study was conducted.

Thanks for the definition. I saw that one already in a Google search, but am unsure of how to apply that definition exactly to this research study. Could you provide more insight?

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

They matched the participants of the study but we not a part of the study itself...they were matched.....identical groups

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