The Journal of family practice
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The febrile infant is a common clinical problem for the primary health care provider. This paper employs the example of a young infant with fever to describe an important epidemiologic concept that is useful in the interpretation of diagnostic data--the likelihood ratio. ⋯ Using likelihood ratios in the practice of primary care medicine should reduce the number of patients with false-positive or false-negative results, sparing some patients needless therapy as well as minimizing the number of patients denied efficacious interventions. Support for likelihood ratios within the primary care medical community will hasten their availability in laboratories of clinical medicine.