Horses and Unicorns and Zebras, Oh My! A Model for Unique Versus Rare Case Studies

摘要

A couple of issues ago (November 2014), we discussed the roles of exploration and validation for case studies in our editorial, "Case Studies: The Alpha and Omega of Evidence-Based Practice". In that editorial, we presented a model illustrating a continuum of exploration and validation in which we can see the circular nature of the case study. Further, we demonstrated how that model could be used to trace that continuum from the beginning (exploration) to the end (validation) of clinical evidence and to influence clinical decision-making. Further, we alluded to denning the uniqueness factor for case studies and how various cases would fit into IJATT. For this editorial, we focus on that one aspect of case studies: Uniqueness.