Full Description
The presentation is consistently excellent. One, the writing is lucid and organized in a way that should be very natural for the clinical reader. Two, the text requires no background in mathematics and uses a minimum of symbols. And, three, the methodological concepts and clinical issues are well integrated through a number of carefully prepared and comprehensive examples. Greg Samsa, Associate Director, Duke Center for Clinical Health Policy Research If a patient is older or younger than, sicker or healthier than, taller or shorter than or simply different from the subjects of a study, do the results pertain? Clinical Epidemiology & Evidence-based Medicine is a resource for all health-care workers involved in applying evidence to the care of their patients. Using clinical examples and citing liberally from the peer-reviewed literature, the book shows how statistical principles can improve medical decisions. Plus, as Katz shows how probability, risk and alternatives are fundamental considerations in all clinical decisions, he demonstrates the intuitive basis for using clinical epidemiolgy as a science underlying medical decisions. After reading this text, the practitioner should be better able to access, interpret, and apply evidence to patient care as well as better understand and control the process of medical decision making.
Contents
SECTION I: PRINCIPLES OF CLINICAL REASONING
Of Patients & Populations: Population-Based Data in Clinical Practice
Test Performance: Disease Probability, Test Interpretation & Diagnosis
Quantitative Aspects of Clinical Thinking: Predictive Values and Bays' Theorem
Fundamentals of Screening: The Art and Science of Looking for Trouble
Measuring and Conveying Risk
SECTION II: PRINCIPLES OF CLINICAL RESEARCH
Hypothesis Testing 1: Principles
Hypothesis Testing 2: Mechanics
Study Design
Interpreting Statistics in the Medical Literature
SECTION III: FROM RESEARCH TO REASONING: THE APPLICATION OF EVIDENCE IN CLINICAL PRACTICE
Decision Analysis
Diagnosis
Management
APPENDICES
