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Scaling, Scoring, and Staging

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Surgical Research

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Abstract

The world of scales often appears to be murky, filled with inscrutable jargon and even more incomprehensible analytic techniques. Clinicians planning clinical research must take a commonsense approach to the use of scales or indices. A scale, like a thermometer, is an instrument to measure clinical phenomena; a score is a value on the scale in a given patient. Clinical scales provide a standardized, repeatable measure of a patient’s condition or functional status, just as thermometers provide a standardized repeatable measure of temperature.

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Authors
  1. M. E. Charlson
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  2. N. A. Johanson
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  3. P. G. Williams
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, University of Cologne, Ostmerheimer Strasse 200, D-51109, Cologne, Germany

    H. Troidl

  2. Joint Centre for Bioethics, and The Toronto Hospital, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street EN 10-230, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 2C4, Canada

    M. F. McKneally

  3. Department of Surgery, McGill University, Montreal General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3G 1A4

    D. S. Mulder

  4. Department of Surgery, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23298-0645, USA

    A. S. Wechsler

  5. Department of Anaesthesia, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, 02114-2696, USA

    B. McPeek

  6. Genentech, Inc., 460 Point San Bruno Boulevard, South San Francisco, California, 94080-4990, USA

    W. O. Spitzer

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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Charlson, M.E., Johanson, N.A., Williams, P.G. (1998). Scaling, Scoring, and Staging. In: Troidl, H., McKneally, M.F., Mulder, D.S., Wechsler, A.S., McPeek, B., Spitzer, W.O. (eds) Surgical Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1888-3_32

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1888-3_32

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7325-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-1888-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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