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Review
. 2007 Jul;33(7):394-9.
doi: 10.1136/jme.2006.017913.

Can evidence-based medicine implicitly rely on current concepts of disease or does it have to develop its own definition?

Andreas Gerber  1 , Frieder Hentzelt, Karl W Lauterbach
Affiliations
Review

Can evidence-based medicine implicitly rely on current concepts of disease or does it have to develop its own definition?

Andreas Gerber et al. J Med Ethics. 2007 Jul.

Abstract

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.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

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