ArticleBMC medicine2015
The science of clinical practice: disease diagnosis or patient prognosis? Evidence about "what is likely to happen" should shape clinical practice.
Article in BMC medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
81 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Predicting Work Disability Related to Spinal Pain: A Systematic Review of the Most Clinically Relevant Tools.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2026Pooled it
- Assisted death in eating disorders: a systematic review of cases and clinical rationales.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Rehabilitation potential in older people living with frailty: a systematic mapping review.BMC geriatrics · 2021Pooled it
- Prognostic Factors for Physical Functioning After Multidisciplinary Rehabilitation in Patients With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.The Clinical journal of pain · 2019Pooled it
- Generic prognostic factors for musculoskeletal pain in primary care: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2017Pooled it
- Trial
- Assessment of prognosis by physicians involved in work disability evaluation: A qualitative study.PloS one · 2019Trial
- Effectiveness of a multifactorial intervention for dizziness in older people in primary care: A cluster randomised controlled trial.PloS one · 2018Trial
- Impairment reduction in older dizzy people in primary care: study protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial.Trials · 2015Trial
- Overall rehabilitation prognosis for the level of functioning following moderate to severe acquired brain injury: a study using routinely collected health record data.Acta neurologica Belgica · 2026Article
- Prediction of low 5-minute Apgar scores: development and internal validation of parity-stratified clinical prediction models for sub-Saharan Africa.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- ICU Length of Stay Patterns and In-Hospital Mortality: Clinical Determinants in a Tertiary-Care Hospital.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Conquering today's health paradox with the power of HEAL - an expert consensus report plus research priorities and policymaker roadmap.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Symptom burden in middle-aged women, the role of immigrant status.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Prediction of ventricular arrhythmic outcomes in suspected cardiac sarcoidosis: a comparison of cardiovascular magnetic resonance phenotyping vs. societal recommendations for implantable cardioverter-defibrillator placement.European heart journal · 2025Article
- Development of a standardized patient-reported clinical questionnaire for children with spinal pain.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Toward a roadmap for addressing today's health dilemma-The 101-statement consensus report.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Awareness of Genetic Testing and Its Impact on Changing Behavior among General Population of the USA: Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS 2022).Lifestyle genomics · 2025Article
- Patient characteristics and healthcare use for high-cost patients with musculoskeletal disorders in Norway: a cohort study.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- A consensus-based agreement on a definition of a process variable: findings from a New Zealand nominal group technique study.BMC health services research · 2024Article
21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDiagnosis is the traditional basis for decision-making in clinical practice. Evidence is often lacking about future benefits and harms of these decisions for patients diagnosed with and without disease. We propose that a model of clinical practice focused on patient prognosis and predicting the likelihood of future outcomes may be more useful. DISCUSSION: Disease diagnosis can provide crucial information for clinical decisions that influence outcome in serious acute illness. However, the central role of diagnosis in clinical practice is challenged by evidence that it does not always benefit patients and that factors other than disease are important in determining patient outcome. The concept of disease as a dichotomous 'yes' or 'no' is challenged by the frequent use of diagnostic indicators with continuous distributions, such as blood sugar, which are better understood as contributing information about the probability of a patient's future outcome. Moreover, many illnesses, such as chronic fatigue, cannot usefully be labelled from a disease-diagnosis perspective. In such cases, a prognostic model provides an alternative framework for clinical practice that extends beyond disease and diagnosis and incorporates a wide range of information to predict future patient outcomes and to guide decisions to improve them. Such information embraces non-disease factors and genetic and other biomarkers which influence outcome. SUMMARY: Patient prognosis can provide the framework for modern clinical practice to integrate information from the expanding biological, social, and clinical database for more effective and efficient care.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.