Evidence-based medicine
PICO questions, levels of evidence, GRADE, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, and critical appraisal.
15 pages
Concept
- Clinical practice guidelinesA clinical practice guideline gathers recommendations based on systematic reviews to help…
- Communicating risk and evidenceGood risk communication gives absolute figures with the same denominator and time frame, and…
- Critical appraisal of a paperAppraising a study means asking three things: is it valid, what did it find and how precisely…
- Efficacy, effectiveness and efficiencyEfficacy is whether it works under ideal conditions; effectiveness, whether it works in real…
- Evidence-based medicineDeciding with the best available evidence, clinical expertise and the patient's values, in five…
- Forest plotA forest plot shows each study as a square with its interval, and the pooled effect as a…
- Levels of evidenceThe pyramid ranks studies by how well they avoid bias; design is a guide, but the quality of…
- PICO questionPICO turns a clinical doubt into a precise question: patient, intervention, comparison and…
- Reporting guidelines: CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, STARDReporting guidelines are lists of what a paper must report for its design, so that the reader…
- The GRADE systemGRADE rates how sure we are of an effect (high to very low) and keeps that certainty apart from…
Measure
- Economic evaluation in healthEconomic evaluation compares the costs and results of two or more options to choose the one that…
- Heterogeneity (I²)Heterogeneity is how much study results differ beyond chance; I² expresses it as a percentage
Study design
- Meta-analysisMeta-analysis combines the results of several studies statistically into one effect, giving more…
- Systematic reviewA systematic review gathers all the studies on a question with explicit, reproducible methods to…
Bias
A to Z
← Epidemiology, biostatistics and public health
Educational content on epidemiological and statistical methods; the examples use made-up numbers to teach the calculation. Not a clinical or legal guide: current Colombian rules are in the official sources.
Representative model, for educational purposes only.