Our topics are structured using tabs, and provide information about specific medical conditions and health-related issues. Depending on how comprehensive the topic is, it might include the following tabs and types of articles:
- Overviews: These introduce a topic, providing background information and access to more in-depth information (“Learn more” and “Research summaries”). Overviews have a fixed structure which you can find on the left of the text.
- Learn more: These articles provide more in-depth information about certain aspects of a topic, such as medications for the treatment of an illness, or specific diagnostic procedures. Our “Learn more” articles may also describe the advantages and disadvantages of the main treatment options, or offer insights into aspects of living with a particular illness.
- Research summaries: These are objective, brief summaries of the latest findings on a research question described in the title. They usually summarize the results of studies, for instance the results of one systematic review or of an IQWiG report. They also describe the study/studies in more detail and explain how the researchers came to their conclusions.
- Real-life stories: In our real-life stories, patients or people who are close to them share the experiences they have had with a certain medical condition or medical intervention. Real-life stories offer an insight into how people live with an illness and cope with it in everyday life.
- Extras:
- Films or quizzes aim to help improve our users’ general medical knowledge and provide a better understanding of medical conditions.
- Decision aids: Decision aids are designed to help you make a health-related decision. These summarize the health problem in an easy-to-understand way and then describe the treatment options and their various advantages and disadvantages.
- In brief: These brief informative texts explain things like bodily functions and anatomy, treatments and diagnostic tests, as well as the principles and methods of evidence-based medicine (EBM). These articles are not specific to the individual topics.
- Downloads: Here you can find PDF leaflets on specific topics.
You can also find the "In brief" information by selecting "Topic areas" in the menu (In brief: "The human body," "Examinations and treatments," and "Evidence-based medicine").
Glossary: An online glossary of medical and scientific terms. Glossary terms within articles are underlined with a dotted line – if you click on them an explanation of the word appears in a separate window. The glossary contains important words and technical terms that can't be explained in a short sentence within the article.
