List of contributors p. vii
Preface p. ix
Foreword Sir Muir Gray p. xi
Acknowledgments p. xiii
1 A brief history of medicine and statistics p. l
2 What is evidence-based medicine? p. 9
3 Causation p. 19
4 The medical literature: an overview p. 24
5 Sarching the medical literature Sandi Pirozzo and Elizabeth Irish p. 33
6 Study design and strength of evidence p. 56
7 Instruments and measurements: precision and validity p. 67
8 Sources of bias p. 80
9 Review of basic statistics p. 93
10 Hypothesis testing p. 109
11 Type I errors and number needed to treat p. 120
12 Negative studies and Type II errors p. 130
13 Risk assessment p. 141
14 Adjustment and multivariate analysis p. 156
15 Randomized clinical trials p. 164
16 Scientific integrity and the responsible conduct of research John E. Kaplan p. 179
17 Applicability and strength of evidence p. 187
18 Communicating evidence to patients LauraJ. Zakowski and Shobhina G. Chheda and Christine S. Seibert p. 199
19 Critical appraisal of qualitative research studies Steven R. Simon p. 208
20 An overview of decision making in medicine p. 215
21 Sources of error in the clinical encounter p. 233
22 The use of diagnostic tests p. 244
23 Utility and characteristics of diagnostic tests: likelihood ratios, sensitivity, and specificity p. 249
24 Bayes' theorem, predictive values, post-test probabilities, and interval likelihood ratios p. 261
25 Comparing tests and using ROC curves p. 276
26 Incremental gain and the threshold approach to diagnostic testing p. 282
27 Sources of bias and critical appraisal of studies of diagnostic tests p. 295
28 Screening tests p. 310
29 Practice guidelines and clinical prediction rules p. 320
30 Decision analysis and quantifying patient values p. 333
31 Cost-effectiveness analysis p. 350
32 Survival analysis and studies of prognosis p. 359
33 Meta-analysis and systematic reviews p. 367
Appendix 1 Levels of evidence and grades of recommendations p. 378
Appendix 2 Overview of critical appraisal p. 384
Appendix 3 Commonly used statistical tests p. 387
Appendix 4 Formulas p. 389
Appendix 5 Proof of Bayes' theorem p. 392
Appendix 6 Using balance sheets to calculate thresholds p. 394
Glossary p. 396
Bibliography p. 411
Index p. 425