GLOBAL MEDICAL ETHICS
Can evidence-based medicine implicitly rely on current concepts of disease or does it have to develop its own definition?
1 Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology, University of Cologne, Cologne/Koeln, Germany
2 Allgemeines Krankenhaus Hamburg-Barmbek/General Hospital Hamburg-Barmbek, Rübenkamp 148, Hamburg, Germany
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr A Gerber
Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology, University of Cologne, Gleueler Strasse 176–178, 50935 Cologne/Koeln, Germany; gerber{at}igke.de
Decisions in healthcare are made against the background of cultural and philosophical definitions of disease, sickness and illness. These concepts or definitions affect both health policy (macro level) and research (meso level), as well as individual encounters between patients and physicians (micro level). It is therefore necessary for evidence-based medicine to consider whether any of the definitions underlying research prior to the hierarchisation of knowledge are indeed compatible with its own epistemological principles.
Abbreviations: EbM, evidence-based medicine; RCT, randomised clinical trial
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