CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY

Examining the principles and methods of research on the evaluation of factors affecting the outcome of illness, this book emphasizes diagnostic and therapeutic interventions--the factors most readily modified by health care providers. The author discusses various ways of structuring observations on patient groups, and appraises the nature and strength of inferences drawn from those observations. He also demonstrates how the results of this type of research--clinical epidemiologic research--can be incorporated into the decision-making process utilized in clinical medicine.