The Essentials
Fourth Edition
by Robert W. Fletcher
Clinical Epidemiology is a comprehensive, concise, and clinically oriented introduction to the subject of epidemiolgy.
Features:
- Revised art program includes a total of 110 two-color illustrations.
- "Key Words" lists begin each chapter and tip the reader to the important concepts that must be mastered in that chapter.
- End of chapter review questions with answers help students test their understanding of the material.
- "Example" feature helps clarify important concepts by discussing actual studies taken directly from clinical literature.
- Highly regarded for its clear, concise writing-style which is perfect for students learning epidemiology for the first time, and as a reference for practitioners and more advanced students.
Contents
Introduction
- The Scientific Basis for Clinical Medicine
- Clinical Epidemiology
- Basic Principles
Abnormality
- Types of Data
- Performance of Measurements
- Variation
- Distributions
- Criteria for Abnormality
- Regression to the Mean
Diagnosis
- Simplifying Data
- The Accuracy of a Test Result
- Sensitivity and Specificity
- Establishing Sensitivity and Specificity
- Predicting Value
- Likelihood Ratios
- Multiple Tests
Frequency
- Are Words Suitable Substitutes for Numbers?
- Prevalence and Incidence
- Relationships Among Prevalence, Incidence, and Duration of Disease
- Some Other Rates
- Studies of Prevalence and Incidence
- Interpreting Measures of Frequency
- Distribution of Disease by Time, Place, and Person
- Value and Limitations of Prevalence Studies
- Postcript
Risk: Looking Forward
- Risk Factors
- Recognizing Risk
- Uses of Risk
- Studies of Risk
- Ways to Express and Compare Risk
Risk: Looking Backward
- Case-Control Studies
- Design of Case-Control Studies
- The Oddds Ratio: An Estimate of Relative Risk
- Controlling for Extraneous Variables
- Investigation of a Disease Outbreak
- Scientific Standards for Case-Control Research
- Risk Communication
Prognosis
- Differences in Risk and Prognostic Factors
- Clinical Course and Natural History of Disease
- Elements of Prognostic Studies
- Describing Prognosis
- False Cohorts
- Identifying Prognostic Factors
- Prediction Rules
- Bias in Cohort Studies
- Dealing with Selection Bias and Confounding
- Generalizability and Sampling Bias
- Bias, Perhaps, But Does It Matter?
Treatment
- Ideas and Evidence
- Studies of Treatment Effects
- Randomized Controlled Trials
- Intention-to-Treat and Explanatory Trials
- Efficacy and Effectiveness
- Tailoring the Results of Trials to Individual Patients
- Limitations of Randomized Trials
- Alternatives to Randomized Trials
- Observational Studies of Interventions
- Standards for Reporting Randomized Controlled Trials
- Phases of Studies of Treatment
Prevention
- Population and Clinical Prevention
- Levels of Prevention
- Approach to Clinical Prevention
- Burden of Suffering
- Screening Tests in Preventive Care
- Criteria for A Good Screening Test
- Possible Adverse Effects from Screening
- Effectiveness of Treatment
- Current Recommendations
Chance
- Two Approaches to Chance
- Hypothesis Testing
- Point Estimates and Confidence Intervals
- How Many Study Patients Are Enough?
- Equivalence Trials
- Detecting Rare Events
- Multiple Comparisons
- Subgroup Analysis
- Secondary Analyses
- Describing Associations
- Multivariable Methods
- Bayesian Reasoning
Cause
- Concepts of Cause
- Establishing Cause
- Ecological Studies
- Evidence for and Against Cause
- Weighing the Evidence
Systematic Reviews
- Providing the Context for Individual Studies
- Traditional Reviews
- Systematic Reviews
- Combining Studies in Meta-Analyses
Knowledge Management
- A Basic Choice - Do It Yourself or Delegate?
- Which Medium Should I Use?
- Looking Up Answers to Clinical Questions
- Surveillance on New Developments
- Journals
- Putting Knowledge Mangement Into Practice
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