Table of contents

  • Foreword
  • Executive summary
  • Synopsis
  • Introduction
  • Data acquisition
  • Results
  • Methodological issues
  • Implications
  • Introduction
  • Background
  • Research into the clinical use of diagnostic  tests
  • Utilisation and impact of echocardiography
  • Ruling out and reassuring
  • Can a test cause harm?
  • What is the problem?  
  • The present  study
  • Methods
  • Sampling procedures
  • Sample size
  • Supplementary series
  • Data collection
  • Data storage  and analysis
  • Facts and figures
  • Hypotheses
  • The patient  population
  • Echocardiography report
  • Physician questionnaire responses
  • The consultation
  • Patient impact
  • Outcome  and impact
  • Reprise
  • The doctors
  • Doctors-qualitative analysis
  • Introduction
  • The medical literature
  • The cardiologists
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • The patients
  • Patients--qualitative analysis  
  • Introduction  
  • Do doctor and patient see things eye-to-eye?
  • Literature  review
  • The patients
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Discussion of results
  • Matching objectives with methods
  • Descriptive and explanatory synthesis
  • Theoretical synthesis
  • Methodological issues
  • Practice and policy
  • Implications
  • For medical practice and education  
  • For community education
  • For technology assessment and quality assurance
  • For health screening
  • For reimbursement policy
  • References  
  • Appendixes
  • 1 Fields for database  
  • 2 Categorisation and grading
  • 3 Patient summary
  • Acknowledgements