Timeline for How to interpret mediator effects on response and vice versa?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
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| Mar 21, 2022 at 9:22 | history | edited | fabiob | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 11, 2022 at 6:19 | vote | accept | Catalyst | ||
| Feb 11, 2022 at 6:19 | comment | added | Catalyst | Thanks @fabiob! I like your comment "otherwise your study is exploratory and can conclude that both hypotheses make sense and that further studies are necessary to compare them" as this is exactly what I'm thinking. As a scientist, I believe we can't say one way or the other until a comprehensive studies are completed. I'm okay if researchers are testing a hypothesis but making bold statement after testing one hypothesis is wrong if without considering the possibility of both sex hormones and sleep dx can also be mediators. Thanks again for your excellent response. | |
| Feb 10, 2022 at 16:04 | comment | added | fabiob | and it could happen that both sex hormones and sleep dx work mathematically as mediators. it is you as a scientist who should have a hypothesis well formulated and biologically meaningful before analyzing the data. otherwise your study is exploratory and can conclude that both hypotheses make sense and that further studies are necessary to compare them. | |
| Feb 10, 2022 at 15:59 | comment | added | fabiob | and to answer to your second comment: before you test whether sleep dx mediates the relationship between chem exposures and sex hormones (or vice-versa), you need as a requirement (at least in Baron&Kenny's formulation, I suggest you read this on wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediation_(statistics) ) that chem exp is a predictor for both sleep dx and sex hormones. | |
| Feb 10, 2022 at 15:50 | comment | added | fabiob | @Catalyst I think they could also do it that way. Mediation analysis is an instrument, which you can use to test a hypothesis, but then it is you as a scientist who decide which hypothesis you want to test. So yes, nothing forbids you to test the hypothesis that sleep disorder is mediating the relationship between chemical exposures and sex hormones. What the data will give as an answer I do not know. | |
| Feb 9, 2022 at 23:25 | comment | added | Catalyst | Just to add clarity to my comment above... from start, an investigator may want to examine the effect of a predictor on responses and found this effect is significance on either sex hormones or sleep disorder. Next he starts to ponder if sex hormones or sleep disorder can act as a mediator, which he later found either model produces significance as well. As such, how to interpret this finding? or we will never see this happening? If the effect of predictor on either responses is significant, is it correct to say there's an effect of chemical exposures on both sex hormones and sleep disorder? | |
| Feb 9, 2022 at 14:32 | comment | added | Catalyst | Thanks for ur explanation and the example given is good but it doesn't quite help me to understand a research i came across recently. It's a study where the predictor is chemical exposures, mediator is sex hormones and the response is sleep disorder. Why do they not have the sleep disorder as mediator and sex hormones as response? because if one is deprived of sleep for days, it will also disrupts hormonal balance, isn't it? As such, can i say that the chemical exposures can have influence on both health outcomes, in this context, sex hormones and sleep disorder, so cannot tease them out? | |
| Feb 9, 2022 at 14:01 | history | answered | fabiob | CC BY-SA 4.0 |