Decision analysis in psychiatry.
BACKGROUND
Decision analysis is an explicit, quantitative approach to examining difficult decisions about course of action. Its applicability to psychiatry is considered.


METHODS
An example of how decision analysis could be used in psychiatry is given, criticism of the technique is discussed, and previous attempts to apply it to mental illness problems (from a Medline search from 1966 onwards) are reviewed.


CONCLUSIONS
The future for decision analysis in psychiatry lies in teaching, audit and research, rather than clinical work.
Hatcher
S
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Pupuke Centre, North Shore Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand.
D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D011340:Problem Solving; D011570:Psychiatry