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Use of Bayes's Theorem in Clinical Decision Suicidal Risk, Differential Diagnosis, Response to Treatment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

J. Kraus
J. Kraus*
Affiliation:
Department of Child Welfare and Social Welfare of New South Wales, V.A.C.C. Building, 70 William Street, Sydney, N.S.W. 2001, Australia
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Extract

Among the theories of making rational choices under uncertainty, the one which originated with an eighteenth-century English clergyman, the Reverend Thomas Bayes, and which uses observed evidence to modify prior judgements concerning different possible ‘causes' of the evidence, is logically nearest to the paradigm of clinical diagnosis. A simple illustration of this theorem is the classical Bertrand Box problem (Fry, 1928), and its wider implications for decision making have been discussed by Birnbaum and Maxwell (1960). An example of the use of the theorem in clinical classification has been given by Maxwell (1961).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 120 , Issue 558 , May 1972 , pp. 561 - 567
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1972 

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References

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