Suze...they have tried to develop a comparison scale for all the major worldwide systems with a "disclaimer that it may not correlate". The basic problem is in research you cannot draw concrete conclusions when using both qualitatve system's findings and quantitative systems'findings. In theory, Qualitative may be more reliable for measuring "frank" disease (example: moderate to severe CHD with CJD changes) and Quantitative would be more reliable for sound statistical analysis and tracking predictors over generations. Some of the newer research in "health services" is to take a quantitative and a qualitative measurement on the same subject/population to demonstrate congruent validity. There are another system for analysis is a meta-analysis...there are several published (meta-analysis of human studies) in the European's Cochran (not Susan Cochran...even though she is a wonderful resource) databank.
Also with a publish article...they look at the type of study design and allow those variations of that design. Example is the trend of hip improvement...which is a wonderful report of findings of a qualitative system. This reported a simple correlation of the findings of a certain time-frame to another as measured by a qualtitative scale. This article, does not address (or is meant to address) when presenting its findings as reported in its abstract...the precentage population surveyed as it relates to the overall population (what is its level of "power" to the overall population). inter (between clinicians) and intra (between the same clinician) rator reliabilties (since it is a subjective system) or possible bias over that specific time-frames...or the improvement of radiographic techniques from one time-frame to another, as a possible influencing factor. They may choose to address that in their discussion component of the article...but that is not the define purpose of this research study. I truly enjoy reviewing literature, while keeping in mind the purpose of the design, and the limitations of each study. All these wonderful studies do give us wonderful "food for thought"...but we must move forward from there for the hope of concrete indicators, such a gene markers and applicable predictors of genotype. All the researchers will defend their positions and that is what makes this pursue of knowledge in CHD/CJD, most interesting yet frustrating to the audience. Regards, Kathy Yonkers Stuarthome CKCS USA ========================================================= "Magic Commands": to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: mailto:LISTSERV@;APPLE.EASE.LSOFT.COM?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL to start it up gain click here: mailto:LISTSERV@;APPLE.EASE.LSOFT.COM?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author.
