Quality not quantity

Question 1

What are the three principles of evidence based medicine?

Answer 1

1. high quality healthcare rests on objective and clinically relevant information
2. there is a hierarchy of evidence where some types are stronger than others
3. scientific data alone is not a sufficient basis for making clinical decisions

Question 2

How can the standardised mortality ratio be calculated?

Answer 2

number of deaths/expected deaths

Question 3

What is the number needed to treat?

Answer 3

the number of patients who need to be treated in order for one person to benefit

Question 4

What is a systematic review?

Answer 4

attempts to identify, appraise and synthesise all the empirical evidence that meets pre specified eligibility criteria to answer a given research question

Question 5

What is meta analysis?

Answer 5

when results of the individual studies are combined to produce an overall statistic

Question 6

What is a confidence interval?

Answer 6

describes a range of values within which we can be reasonably sure that the true effect actually lies

Question 7

What is the point estimate?

Answer 7

indicates the magnitude of the effect of the experimental intervention compared to the control intervention

Question 8

What does a narrow confidence interval suggest?

Answer 8

higher confidence in the results

Question 9

What does a wide confidence interval suggest?

Answer 9

lower confidence in results