Causal relationships in medicine.
The determination of causality is crucial in medicine: for example, a doctor who prescribes a therapeutic regimen believes that it will cure the disease. Causality in medicine is complex, since it can be difficult to establish a cause-effect relationship: arterial hypertension is a known risk factor for stroke, but most people with hypertension will not have a stroke, and most people who have strokes are normotensive. In this article we will define causality, then show how to determine a cause-effect relationship, and finally we will present the type of studies that can provide the strongest evidence on causality.
Carneiro
António Vaz
AV
Centro de Estudos de Medicina Baseada na Evidência Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal. avc@fm.ul.pt
D015984:Causality; D015331:Cohort Studies; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies