Principles of Evidence‐Based Dermatology

Abstract

Evidence‐based dermatology simply refers to the integration of the best external evidence to the care of individual patients. Learning to appraise relevant evidence critically is a skill that has to be learnt, as are the principles of applying such filtered evidence to your patient. This chapter covers the rationale and limitations of evidence‐based dermatology and provides practical guidance on how to formulate clinically focused questions, how to search for relevant evidence and how to appraise evidence critically from systematic reviews, clinical trials, diagnostic tests and studies about adverse events. We also cover how to apply evidence to individual patients. We close with short cut methods to help the busy dermatologist to assess clinical research along with a list of recommended further reading.