ANALYSIS OF CLINICAL DECISION-MAKING

Analysis of clinical decision making is a quantitative method using pr obabilities to evaluate the process in uncertain situations. It provid es a model of clinical decision making by integrating experimental and epidemiological data, the opinions of specialists and an assessment o f the patient's state of health. There is also a place for the integra tion of the patients' opinions and of their quality of life. Using thi s information and eventually associating the cost of management, analy sis of decision making tries to demonstrate a preference for a given s trategy in a given clinical or public health problem. This article pre sents the methodological basis of analysis of decision making using a simple example of clinical cardiological practice and discusses the va lue of this method for debating a clinical choice with criteria integr ating the patients' quality of life and the cost to society.