This guide is educational and does not provide dosing instructions, diagnose or treat a condition, replace licensed care, or recommend illegal activity. Laws and evidence change.
Begin with the verb
“Caused,” “was associated with,” “participants reported” and “may” are not interchangeable. Headlines often upgrade cautious study language into certainty. Return to the abstract and ask what was measured.
Name the study design
Laboratory research can identify mechanisms. Observational studies identify patterns. Randomized trials are better suited to causality. Qualitative studies illuminate lived experience. Reviews inherit the limitations of what exists.
Look for the comparator
Compared with what: placebo, waitlist, existing treatment, an active control or nothing? Psychedelic trials face special blinding challenges because participants may guess what they received.
A statistically significant result can still be small, short-lived or uncertain in ordinary life.
Seven questions before sharing
Good research literacy is a pause between excitement and amplification.
- How many people participated?
- Who was excluded?
- How long were they followed?
- Was the study preregistered and controlled?
- Were harms reported as carefully as benefits?
- Who funded it, and what interests were disclosed?
- Does the headline match the outcome?
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Follow the source.
Cochrane: evidence-based health care↗NIH: Clinical research basics↗Muthukumaraswamy et al. (2021): blinding and expectancy↗MYCO SANCTUM • EDUCATION • CONTEXT • CONNECTION
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