Biostatistics

Abstract

Medical students and physicians are bombarded with claims, conclusions, and generalizations about research, clinical diagnoses, and treatments. Because people tend to trust what they see in print, medical students or physicians may accept these conclusions at face value. This is sometimes a mistake, as many conclusions, upon which many diagnoses and treatments are based, are incorrect. The consequences for the health of many patients can be disastrous. One example is the overdiagnosis of schizophrenia in the United States (described by Rosenhan [1] and Taylor and Abrams [2]), and the consequent mismedication of healthy, depressed, or manic patients with neuroleptic drugs.