Essential Evidence-Based Medicine Second Edition Essential Evidence-Based Medicine Second Edition

The abstract is a summary of the study. It should accurately reflect what actually happened in the study. Its purpose is to give you an overview of the research and let you decide if you want to read the full article. The abstract includes a sentence or two on each of the elements of the article. These include the introduction, study design, population studied, interventions and comparisons, outcomes measured, primary or most important results, and conclusions. The abstract may not completely or accurately represent the actual findings of the article and often does not contain important information found only in the article. Therefore it should never be used as the sole source of information about the study.