Critical Appraisal of Epidemiological Studies and Clinical Trials - Rilegato

Elwood, J. Mark

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0199218250 ISBN 13: 9780199218257

Casa editrice: OUP Oxford, 2007

Riassunto

This book presents a logical system of critical appraisal, to allow readers to evaluate studies and to carry out their own studies more effectively. This system emphasizes the central importance of cause and effect relationships. Its great strength is that it is applicable to a wide range of issues, and both to intervention trials and observational studies.

This system unifies the often different approaches used in epidemiology, health services research, clinical trials, and evidence-based medicine, starting from a logical consideration of cause and effect. The author's approach to the issues of study design, selection of subjects, bias, confounding, and the place of statistical methods has been praised for its clarity and interest. Systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and the applications of this logic to evidence-based medicine, knowledge-based health care, and health practice and policy are discussed. Current and often controversial examples are used, including screening for prostate cancer, publication bias in psychiatry, public health issues in developing countries, and conflicts between observational studies and randomized trials. Statistical issues are explained clearly without complex mathematics, and the most useful methods are summarized in the appendix.
The final chapters give six applications of the critical appraisal of major studies: randomized trials of medical treatment and prevention, a prospective and a retrospective cohort study, a small matched case-control study, and a large case-control study. In these chapters, sections of the original papers are reproduced and the original studies placed in context by a summary of current developments.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Mark Elwood is an epidemiologist with particular interests in cancer prevention, screening, and evidence-based medicine. He has worked in three continents and trained in Belfast, in Ottawa and at Harvard. He has recently returned to the British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, where he was the first Head of Epidemiology. He has been Professor of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Nottingham, UK and Director of the National Cancer Control Initiative in Australia. His research has focused on the prevention and early diagnosis of cancers and birth defects, the evaluation of clinical and public health interventions, and the evaluation of environmental hazards. Professor Elwood is the author of several books and over 250 scientific papers.

Contenuti:

• 1: The importance of causal relationships in medicine and health care
• 2: Study designs which can demonstrate and test causation
• 3: The results obtained from studies of causation
• 4: Selection of subjects for study
• 5: Error and bias in observations
• 6: Confounding
• 7: Chance variation
• 8: Combining results from several studies: systematic review and meta-analysis
• 9: The diagnosis of causation
• Critical appraisal in action - introduction to Chapters 10 to 15
• 10: Critical appraisal of a randomized clinical trial
• 11: Critical appraisal of a randomized trial of a preventive agent
• 12: Critical appraisal of a prospective cohort study
• 13: Critical appraisal of a retrospective cohort study
• 14: Critical appraisal of a matched case-control study
• 15: Critical appraisal of a large, population based, case-control study
• Answers to self test questions
• Appendix: Methods of statistical analysis: formulae and worked examples

Su questa edizione

• Editore: OUP Oxford
• Data di pubblicazione: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0199218250
• ISBN 13: 9780199218257
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 3
• Numero di pagine: 588