The general purpose of Evidence-Based Medicine is to select from the health-related literature* those articles reporting important advances in internal medicine, general and family practice, surgery, psychiatry, paediatrics, and obstetrics and gynaecology, and whose results are most likely to be both true and useful. These articles are described, critiqued and commented on by clinical experts. The specific purposes of Evidence-Based Medicine are:

• ■. to identify, using predefined criteria, the best original and review articles on the cause, course, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, quality of care, or economics of disorders in the foregoing fields

• ■. o provide a description and expert commentary on the context of each article, its methods, and the clinical applications that its findings warrant

• ■. to disseminate the summaries in a timely fashion

The BMJ Publishing Group publishes Evidence-Based Medicine.