This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on Web of Science (2)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor.—The Users' Guide to the Medical Literature by Dr Dans and colleagues¹ for assessing the applicability of clinical trials to a clinician's own patients represents an important advance in the ongoing effort to improve the usefulness of clinical research. However, the authors omitted one of the most common and important characteristics that determines applicability: the health care setting in which the patient is seen. While many important clinical trials are conducted in tertiary care settings, most clinical care is provided in primary care settings. Although the guides presented in the article by Dans et al can facilitate assessment of applicability of these trials to primary care, it is important to identify the specific ways in which primary care patients and practice differ from tertiary care and how these differences may affect applicability.

Patients seen in primary care settings compared with patients seen in tertiary care settings are . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Users' Guides to the Medical Literature: XIV. How to Decide on the Applicability of Clinical Trial Results to Your Patient
Antonio L. Dans, Leonila F. Dans, Gordon H. Guyatt, Scott Richardson, and for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group
JAMA. 1998;279(7):545-549.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT