Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Health Care

This chapter will begin with providing a brief overview of the history of clinical epidemiology and describe its relation with evidence-based medicine. Clinical epidemiology differs from classical epidemiology in that clinical epidemiology supports other basic medical sciences such as biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology because it facilitates their application in research through formulation of sound clinical research methods and, thus, puts these disciplines into clinical context. Therefore, clinical epidemiology goes beyond clinical trials. We will describe this concept in the following paragraphs (see Sects. 47.1.1–47.1.3). The following sections include case scenarios that facilitate the introduction of the key concepts about developing clinical questions, using diagnostic tests, evaluating therapy, appraising systematic reviews, developing guidelines, and making clinical decisions. By describing clinical epidemiology in this way, the relation to evidence-based health care (which in the authors’ view encompasses all fields of medicine and associated clinical sciences) will become clear.