IMPORTANCE Diagnostic errors are an understudied aspect of ambulatory patient safety. OBJECTIVES To determine the types of diseases missed and the diagnostic processes involved in cases of confirmed diagnostic errors in primary care settings and to determine whether record reviews could shed light on potential contributory factors to inform future interventions. DESIGN We reviewed medical r...

Contemporary theories of clinical reasoning espouse a dual processing model, which consists of a rapid, intuitive component (Type 1) and a slower, logical and analytical component (Type 2). Although the general consensus is that this dual processing model is a valid representation of clinical reasoning, the causes of diagnostic errors remain unclear. Cognitive theories about human memory propos...

BACKGROUND Verbal autopsy (VA) studies are important for measuring cause-specific mortality in areas where medical certification of cause of death is uncommon. This paper explores the effects of misclassification errors on the results of verbal autopsy studies, and recommends ways to take misclassification errors into account in the interpretation of results. METHODS Mathematical formulae are...