9780471489764

Now in its second edition this book helps to unravel the process of evidence-based practice which requires clinicians to evaluate and collate information from the journals they read. The book uses actual papers to illustrate how to understand and evaluate published research, but goes beyond this to provide an explanation of a range of important research-related topics.

Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

PART I SETTING THE SCENE: WHO DID WHAT, AND WHY

1

(14)

Some Preliminaries

3

(4)

The Introduction

7

(4)

The Objectives

11

(4)

PART II DESIGN MATTERS: WHAT TYPE OF STUDY ARE YOU READING ABOUT?

15

(22)

Descriptive Studies

17

(6)

Analytic Studies

23

(8)

Intervention Studies

31

(6)

PART III THE CAST: FINDING OUT ABOUT THE SUBJECTS OF THE RESEARCH

37

(18)

The Research Setting

39

(4)

Populations and Samples

43

(4)

Identifying and Defining Cases

47

(4)

Controls and Comparisons

51

(4)

PART IV ESTABLISHING THE FACTS: STARTING WITH BASIC OBSERVATIONS

55

(32)

Identifying the Characteristics of Data

57

(10)

Summarising the Characteristics of Data

67

(8)

Measuring the Characteristics of Subjects

75

(6)

Measuring the Characteristics of Measures

81

(6)

PART V ESTABLISHING MORE OF THE FACTS: SOME COMMON WAYS OF DESCRIBING RESULTS

87

(28)

Fractions, Proportions and Rates

89

(2)

Risk and Odds

91

(4)

Ratios of Risk and Odds

95

(6)

Confidence Intervals for Means, Proportions and Medians

101

(8)

Confidence Intervals for Ratios

109

(6)

PART VI GETTING INTO DATA ANALYSIS: HOW WHY STATISTICAL TESTS ARE USED, AND OTHER MATTERS

115

(56)

Hypothesis Tests and p-Values

117

(10)

Measuring Association

127

(8)

Measuring Agreement

135

(6)

Linear Regression

141

(10)

Logistic Regression

151

(4)

Proportional (Cox) Regression

155

(2)

Systematic Reviewing and Meta-analysis

157

(8)

Measuring Survival

165

(6)

PART VII READING BETWEEN THE LINES: HOW AUTHORS USE TEXT, TABLES AND PICTURES TO TELL YOU WHAT THEY'VE DONE

171

(22)

Results in Text and Tables

173

(8)

Results in Pictures

181

(8)

The Discussion and the Conclusions

189

(4)

References

193

(4)

Index

197

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Understanding Clinical Papers

047148976X

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