"Evidence-based medicine" (EBM) is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients."

The purpose of this Web site is to collect EBM statements related to the most common diseases and conditions seen by primary care health professionals, and in particular, college health physicians. It is intended that the statements be presented in such a way that the evidence may be applied within the context of the complex medical decision-making process. 

The Specific Conditions/Diseases addressed here are the most frequent diagnoses recorded at the Montana State University Swingle Student Health Service during the fall-winter and winter-spring semesters of 1997-98. For each condition, statements of evidence are presented, where available and appropriate, on etiology, epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, prognosis and patient education, with references. Caveats are included, since clinical decisions are necessarily context-dependent and a particular EBM statement may not apply to every patient population. Citations are hyperlinked to the original source of the EBM statement.

The EBM statements on this Web site are based on examination of high quality systematic reviews, perusal of those practice guidelines formulated using the concepts of EBM and, occasionally, EBM-based analyses performed by the Web site author and colleagues of relevant published meta-analyses and randomized controlled trials. Consensus statements are also included when they have been developed using EBM concepts rather than solely the opinions of experts.

A more complete discussion of EBM is available on the About Evidence-Based Medicine Web site.Web resources used to develop the EBM statements on this Web site are available on the EBM Resources Web site.