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Diagnosis In General Practice: Using Probabilistic Reasoning, Jenny Doust
Diagnosis In General Practice: Using Probabilistic Reasoning, Jenny Doust
Jenny Doust
Diagnostic tests—whether clinical signs, imaging, or laboratory tests—are imperfect: there is always a possibility that test results are inaccurate and our diagnosis is wrong. However, we need to make decisions about whether to treat or not to treat patients, and so we need to feel confident that our diagnosis is above a certain threshold before we decide to treat a patient and below a certain threshold if we decide to withhold treatment. The threshold depends on the disease and the potential harms and benefits of treating or not treating patients. Unless we have clear strategies to cope with the uncertainties …
Acute Respiratory Infections, Sharon Sanders, Jenny Doust, Chris Del Mar
Acute Respiratory Infections, Sharon Sanders, Jenny Doust, Chris Del Mar
Jenny Doust
Extract: Acute respiratory infections may be classified in several different ways: by their symptoms (fever, sore throat, cough, ear pain, runny nose); by their clinical manifestations (coryza, pharyngitis, tonsillitis, epiglottitis, otitis media, influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia); or by causative organism. Furthermore, their symptoms and sometimes the whole clinical picture may be shared by conditions that are not infections (asthma, allergic rhinitis). Some of this complexity is shown in Figure 46.1. Elucidating the exact location or responsible organism is usually clinically unhelpful. In this chapter, we focus on diagnostic questions that have the greatest impact on the patient with an acute respiratory …