EPIDEMIOLOGICAL LITERACY AMONG DOCTORS

Doctors working in an Israeli university hospital had a limited knowledge of the basic principles of research methods and data analysis, a study has shown. This lack of knowledge negatively affected the doctors’ ability to conduct research. The doctors’ understanding of epidemiological methods differed considerably depending on the country in which they graduated from medical school, with doctors from the former Soviet Union being least knowledgeable. A greater level of understanding of research methods was associated with self reported reading of the methods and discussion sections of papers. Doctors from former Soviet republics had not been exposed to accepted research methods, and they are a target population for introductory research courses on the principles of research as part of their absorption into western style medicine. (

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HEALTH ASSESSMENT IN THE NETHERLANDS

A consensus questionnaire has been developed in the Netherlands to replace the ones previously used—a literal translation (in 2001) of the Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) Disability Index, further amended by two more—to measure physical disability …