A CLASSIFICATION BY LEVELS OF CLINICAL EP IDEMIOLOGIC DESIGNS

The objective was to identify the characteristics of epidemiologic des igns enabling their classification. A critical review of the literatur e in the clinical epidemiologic area was done to establish the main di fferences between designs. A meeting with experts to discuss this cont roversial topic and obtain criteria by consensus was organized. We pro pose an integral classification based on levels with two fundamental s hafts: intervention and explanatory reasoning.