Short courses from the University of Oxford

Evidence-Based Diagnosis and Screening 

23rd-27th March 2009

The aim of this course is to critically appraise and apply, at an
advanced level, the best evidence on diagnostic tests.
It is led by Professor Paul Glasziou, Director of the Centre for
Evidence-Based Medicine, Department of Public Health and Primary Care,
University of Oxford. He has worked for many years in developing
evidence-based practice, including teaching evidence-based practice to
medical and postgraduate students, running regular workshops for other
health care workers, editing the BMJ's Journal of Evidence-based
Medicine, and chairing the Cochrane Collaboration's methods group on
Applicability Recommendations.

This module is a blend of online and face-to-face teaching and will
cover:

Basic Diagnostics
By the end of the module students should:
* Understand and be able t o extract measures of test accuracy

* Understand the concepts of sensitivity, specificity, repeatability and
predictive values

* Calculate sensitivity, specificity, prevalence and predictive values

* Calculate and apply Likelihood Ratios

Advanced Diagnostics
By the end of this section section students should:
* Understand the context of diagnostic processes, and the limitations
and biases of clinical reasoning

* Critically appraise articles assessing the validity and repeatability of a screening or diagnostic test, including understanding the importance of:
* Independent, blind reference standard
* Spectrum of patients
* Verification bias

* Understand and interpret ROC curves

* Calculate and apply Likelihood Ratios with more than two outcome values
* Understand the concepts and importance of the following issues when
conducting a critical appraisal of a systematic review for a screening
or diagnostic test:
* Inclusion/exclu sion criteria
* Impli cit / explicit thresholds
* Applicability of screening

* Determine the value of the tests for different patients

* Use information from diagnostic test articles to estimate the probabilities of alternative diagnoses with different test results

* Understand the implications of combined tests, including the use and construction of clinical prediction rules


To apply for this course or for further information, please go to our
website - http://cpd.conted.ox.ac.uk/ebhc/courses/diagnosis_screening/

Or contact us by email - cpdhealth@conted.ox.ac.uk