Introduction to Prognostic Research

Abstract

While diagnosis is purely descriptive/acausal knowing and etiognosis is purely causal knowing, prognosis generally is both of these: causal in respect to the contemplated or actually adopted treatments and acausal conditionally on these. Prognosis generally is first about survival, and then about outcome or course or both conditionally on survival. In thinking about prognoses and also in models for prognostic probabilities, further distinctions need to be made among acute, subacute, and chronic prognoses. And while actual studies for each of these three species of prognosis have their correspondingly differentiated general essence, which fundamentally has to do with the essence of the study base, there generally is an important duality in the way the study base of a prognostic study is constituted.