Questions about translating research evidence into practice

In this section:

• Question 1: Isn’t anything worth trying when a patient has a life-threatening condition?
• Question 2: Although patients might want to know if a treatment ‘works’, suppose they don’t want all the details?
• Question 3: Statistics are confusing – should patients really have to look at the numbers?
• Question 4: How can someone know that the research evidence applies to them?
• Question 5: Won’t genetic testing – and ‘personalized medicine’ – mean doctors can work out the specific treatment needed in every individual and make all this unnecessary?
• Question 6: If someone has a condition that is being studied in an ongoing clinical trial, how do they find out about this if their doctor doesn’t know about it?
• Question 7: What’s the best way of telling if the evidence (on the web or elsewhere) is reliable?
• Question 8: Are there reliable sources of information that can be recommended?
• Question 9: How should people avoid being ‘labelled’ with an ‘illness’ and getting unnecessary treatments?

Next: Where do we go from here?