Smart Health Choices: making sense of health advice

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• Format Texts
• Language/s English
• Target Audience Further education, Self-directed learning
• EBM Stage 0 - Why EBM?
• Duration >15 mins
• Difficulty Introductory

Key Concepts addressed

• 1-3a Beware of conflicting interests
• 1-3b Anecdotes are unreliable evidence
• 1-3c Expert opinion is not always right
• 2-1a Comparison groups should be similar
• 2-1d People should not know which treatment they get
• 1-1a Treatments can harm
• 1-2c Association is not the same as causation
• 1-2e Comparisons are needed to identify treatment effects
• 1-2f Consider all of the relevant fair comparisons
• 1-2g Common practice is not always evidence-based
• 1-2j Earlier is not necessarily better

Details

The Smart Health Choices e-book explains how to make informed health decisions.

Excerpt from the book:

“Every day we make decisions about our health – some big and some small, some conscious and some subconscious. What we eat, how we live and even where we live can affect our health. We make decisions about where to source information about maintaining good health, as well as about whom to see for treatment when we are ill.

We are bombarded with information about health on a daily basis. ‘Good health’ is highly valued and some people will go to great lengths to achieve it. Sometimes we worry whether we are making the right decisions and we seek assurances that we are receiving the best possible care. We often want answers to questions about a specific health condition. We might wonder about the meaning of certain test results, whether there are other treatment options and, if so, how effective they are. More and more people are also beginning to question whether tests and treatments might have side effects or involve risks”. Read the book