Dictionary of Evidence-based Medicine.pdf

Dictionary of Evidence-based Medicine 127
Primary care trusts (see under Primary care groups)
Primary outcome measure
In a clinical trial, a primary outcome measure is a prospectively defined
outcome which the investigators consider to be of primary importance.
Such an outcome can then be used to define the sample size of the trial and
to define clinically meaningful changes on which to base judgements as to
whether a treatment is effective or not. Such outcome measures can be
supplemented with secondary outcome measures. The latter can be used
to support the conclusions to be drawn from the primary outcomes or to
generate new hypotheses. 'Primary and secondary outcome measures' are
also used in meta-analyses.
Primary-secondary care interface
The interface between health care workers employed in hospitals on the
one hand and general practice on the other.
Prisoners' dilemma
The prisoners' dilemma is a classic scenario in game theory used to
illustrate how independent decision making can lead to inferior results for
the parties involved. Similar scenarios are widely used to illustrate decision
making by players in an oligopoly (a market dominated by a few firms
which have to consider each other's possible retaliatory actions) (Gibbons
R (1992) A primer in game theory. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hertfordshire).
Private goods (see under Public goods)
Probabilistic functionalism
Probabilistic functionalism is an approach suggested by Egon Brunswik
for studying and modelling human judgement (Brunswik E (1955) Representative
design and probabilistic theory in a functional psychology.
Psychological Review. 62: 193-217). The approach is based on two propositions:
(i) that the chief task of psychology is to understand how an
individual functionally relates to his or her environment; (ii) that the
relationships are stochastic or based on probabilistic relationships.