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Users' Guides to the Medical Literature: Title and subTitle BreakVII. How to Use a Clinical Decision Analysis B. What Are the Results and Will They Help Me in Caring for My Patients? FREE

W. Scott Richardson, MD; Allan S. Detsky, MD, PhD; Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc; Deborah Cook, MD, MSc; Hertzel Gerstein, MD, MSc; Robert Hayward, MD, MPH; Anne Holbrook, MD, PharmD; Roman Jaeschke, MD, MSc; Elizabeth Juniper, MCSP, MSc; Mitchell Levine, MD, MSc; David Naylor, MD, DPhil; Andrew Oxman, MD, MSc; David Sackett, MD, MSc; Sean Tunis, MD, MSc; Stephen Walter, PhD; John Williams, Jr, MD, MHS; Mark Wilson, MD, MPH
[+] Author Affiliations

A complete list of members (with affiliations) of the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group appears in the first article of this series (JAMA. 1993;270:2093-2095). The following members contributed to this article: Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc (chair); Deborah Cook, MD, MSc; Hertzel Gerstein, MD, MSc; Robert Hayward, MD, MPH; Anne Holbrook, MD, PharmD; Roman Jaeschke, MD, MSc; Elizabeth Juniper, MCSP, MSc; Mitchell Levine, MD, MSc; David Naylor, MD, DPhil; Andrew Oxman, MD, MSc; David Sackett, MD, MSc; Sean Tunis, MD, MSc; Stephen Walter, PhD; John Williams, Jr, MD, MHS; and Mark Wilson, MD, MPH.

Reprint requests to Room 2C12, McMaster University Health Sciences Centre, 1200 Main St W, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8N 3Z5 (Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc).

Users' Guides to the Medical Literature section editor: Drummond Rennie, MD, Deputy Editor (West), JAMA.


JAMA. 1995;273(20):1610-1613. doi:10.1001/jama.1995.03520440064038
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YOU RECALL from the first of our two articles concerning clinical decision analysis1 that your patient is a middle-aged man with heart failure from an idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. You are trying to decide whether to recommend anticoagulation with warfarin to prevent systemic or pulmonary thromboembolism. Your literature search showed that no randomized clinical trials of warfarin for this use have been published. The search did discover a clinical decision analysis,2 and in the first article, we showed you how to evaluate its validity. In this article, we will show you how to interpret the results and generalizability of a clinical decision analysis (Table).

As shown in the Figure, decision trees are displayed graphically, oriented from left to right, with the decision to be analyzed on the left, the compared strategies in the center, and the clinical outcomes on the right. The square box, termed a "decision node," represents

REFERENCES

Richardson WS, Detsky AS, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, VII: how to use an article on clinical decision analysis, A: are the results of the study valid? JAMA . 1995;;273:1292-1295.
Tsevat J, Eckman MH, McNutt RA, Pauker SG.  Warfarin for dilated cardiomyopathy: a bloody tough pill to swallow? Med Decis Making . 1989;;9:162-169.
Weinstein MC, Fineberg HV. Clinical Decision Analysis . Philadelphia, Pa: WB Saunders; 1980;.
Sox HC, Blatt MA, Higgins, MC, Marton KI. Medical Decision Making . Boston, Mass: Butterworth-Heinemann; 1988;.
Kassirer JP, Pauker SG.  The toss-up. N Engl J Med . 1981;;305:1467-1469.
Cummings SR, Lillington GA, Richard RJ.  Managing solitary pulmonary nodules: the choice of strategy is a 'close call.' Am Rev Respir Dis . 1986;;134: 453-460.
Deber RB, Goel V.  Using explicit decision rules to manage issues of justice, risk and ethics in decision analysis: when is it not rational to maximize expected utility? Med Decis Making . 1990;;10:181-194.
Torrance GW, Feeny D.  Utilities and quality-adjusted life years. Int J Technol Assess Health Care . 1989;;5:559-579.
Mehrez A, Gafni A.  Quality-adjusted life years, utility theory and healthy-years equivalence. Med Decis Making . 1989;;9:142-149.
Naimark DM, Naglie G, Detsky AS.  The meaning of life expectancy: what is a clinically significant gain? J Gen Intern Med . 1994;;9:702-707.
Tsevat J, Weinstein MC, Williams LW, et al.  Expected gains in life expectancy for various coronary heart disease risk factor modifications. Circulation . 1991;;83:1194-1201.
Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, Cook DJ, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, II: how to use an article about therapy or prevention, A: are the results of the study valid? JAMA . 1993;;270:2598-2601.
Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, Cook DJ, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, II: how to use an article about therapy or prevention, B: what were the results and will they help me in caring for my patients? JAMA . 1994;;271:59-63.
Jaeschke R, Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, III: how to use an article about a diagnostic test, A: are the results of the study valid? JAMA . 1994;;271:389-391.
Jaeschke R, Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, III: how to use an article about a diagnostic test, B: what are the results and will they help me in caring for my patients? JAMA . 1994;;271:703-707.
Levine MS, Walter SS, Lee HN, Haines T, Holbrook A, Moyer V, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, IV: how to use an article about harm. JAMA . 1994;;271:1615-1619.
Laupacis A, Wells G, Richardson WS, Tugwell P, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, V: how to use an article about prognosis. JAMA . 1994;;272: 234-237.
Oxman AD, Cook DJ, Guyatt GH, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, VI: how to use an overview. JAMA . 1994;;272:1367-1371.
Oxman AD, Sackett DL, Guyatt GH, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, I: how to get started. JAMA . 1993;;270:2093-2095.
Landefeld CS, Beyth RJ.  Anticoagulant-related bleeding: clinical epidemiology, prediction and prevention. Am J Med . 1993;;95:315-328.
Connolly SJ, Laupacis A, Gent M, Roberts RS, Cairns JA, Joyner C, for the CAFA Study Coinvestigators.  Canadian atrial fibrillation anticoagulation (CAFA) study. J Am Coll Cardiol . 1991;;18: 349-355.
Dunkman WB, Johnson GR, Carson PE, et al.  Incidence of thromboembolic events in congestive heart failure. Circulation . 1993;;87[ (suppl VI) ]:VI94-VI101.
Dec GW, Fuster V.  Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. N Engl J Med . 1994;;331:1564-1575.
Baker DW, Wright RF.  Management of heart failure, IV: anticoagulation for patients with heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction. JAMA . 1994;;272:1614-1618.
Kubo SH, Cohn JN.  Approach to treatment of the patient with heart failure in 1994. Adv Intern Med . 1994;;39:485-515.

Figures

Tables

Interactive Graphics

Video

Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature

Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal

Richardson WS, Detsky AS, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, VII: how to use an article on clinical decision analysis, A: are the results of the study valid? JAMA . 1995;;273:1292-1295.
Tsevat J, Eckman MH, McNutt RA, Pauker SG.  Warfarin for dilated cardiomyopathy: a bloody tough pill to swallow? Med Decis Making . 1989;;9:162-169.
Weinstein MC, Fineberg HV. Clinical Decision Analysis . Philadelphia, Pa: WB Saunders; 1980;.
Sox HC, Blatt MA, Higgins, MC, Marton KI. Medical Decision Making . Boston, Mass: Butterworth-Heinemann; 1988;.
Kassirer JP, Pauker SG.  The toss-up. N Engl J Med . 1981;;305:1467-1469.
Cummings SR, Lillington GA, Richard RJ.  Managing solitary pulmonary nodules: the choice of strategy is a 'close call.' Am Rev Respir Dis . 1986;;134: 453-460.
Deber RB, Goel V.  Using explicit decision rules to manage issues of justice, risk and ethics in decision analysis: when is it not rational to maximize expected utility? Med Decis Making . 1990;;10:181-194.
Torrance GW, Feeny D.  Utilities and quality-adjusted life years. Int J Technol Assess Health Care . 1989;;5:559-579.
Mehrez A, Gafni A.  Quality-adjusted life years, utility theory and healthy-years equivalence. Med Decis Making . 1989;;9:142-149.
Naimark DM, Naglie G, Detsky AS.  The meaning of life expectancy: what is a clinically significant gain? J Gen Intern Med . 1994;;9:702-707.
Tsevat J, Weinstein MC, Williams LW, et al.  Expected gains in life expectancy for various coronary heart disease risk factor modifications. Circulation . 1991;;83:1194-1201.
Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, Cook DJ, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, II: how to use an article about therapy or prevention, A: are the results of the study valid? JAMA . 1993;;270:2598-2601.
Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, Cook DJ, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, II: how to use an article about therapy or prevention, B: what were the results and will they help me in caring for my patients? JAMA . 1994;;271:59-63.
Jaeschke R, Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, III: how to use an article about a diagnostic test, A: are the results of the study valid? JAMA . 1994;;271:389-391.
Jaeschke R, Guyatt GH, Sackett DL, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, III: how to use an article about a diagnostic test, B: what are the results and will they help me in caring for my patients? JAMA . 1994;;271:703-707.
Levine MS, Walter SS, Lee HN, Haines T, Holbrook A, Moyer V, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, IV: how to use an article about harm. JAMA . 1994;;271:1615-1619.
Laupacis A, Wells G, Richardson WS, Tugwell P, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, V: how to use an article about prognosis. JAMA . 1994;;272: 234-237.
Oxman AD, Cook DJ, Guyatt GH, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, VI: how to use an overview. JAMA . 1994;;272:1367-1371.
Oxman AD, Sackett DL, Guyatt GH, for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group.  Users' guides to the medical literature, I: how to get started. JAMA . 1993;;270:2093-2095.
Landefeld CS, Beyth RJ.  Anticoagulant-related bleeding: clinical epidemiology, prediction and prevention. Am J Med . 1993;;95:315-328.
Connolly SJ, Laupacis A, Gent M, Roberts RS, Cairns JA, Joyner C, for the CAFA Study Coinvestigators.  Canadian atrial fibrillation anticoagulation (CAFA) study. J Am Coll Cardiol . 1991;;18: 349-355.
Dunkman WB, Johnson GR, Carson PE, et al.  Incidence of thromboembolic events in congestive heart failure. Circulation . 1993;;87[ (suppl VI) ]:VI94-VI101.
Dec GW, Fuster V.  Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. N Engl J Med . 1994;;331:1564-1575.
Baker DW, Wright RF.  Management of heart failure, IV: anticoagulation for patients with heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction. JAMA . 1994;;272:1614-1618.
Kubo SH, Cohn JN.  Approach to treatment of the patient with heart failure in 1994. Adv Intern Med . 1994;;39:485-515.
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To understand the clinical management of acute heart failure syndromes.
Accreditation Information The American Medical Association is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The AMA designates this journal-based CME activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM per course. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
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