Background:
After prospective assessment of six homeopathic symptoms we validated some rubrics
of the homeopathic repertory using Bayesian theory. In this paper we introduce statistical
arguments for introducing or discarding entries from the repertory.
Methods:
4094 patients entered the prospective study and 4072 prescriptions were evaluated.
After translating typeface into Likelihood Ratios (LRs), Confidence Intervals and
the probability of existing repertory entries compared to our findings were calculated.
Outcome:
Our assessment yielded 121 relevant results to validate existing repertory entries.
Five symptoms could be compared with Kent's original repertory; they have about the
same prevalence (range 3.9–6.5%) in the whole population, but the size of the corresponding
repertory rubrics varies from 3 to 103 entries. LR assessment reduced the larger rubrics
and supplemented the smaller ones. Our results do not correspond with 56% of the existing
repertory entries regarding five symptom-rubrics. This result cannot be generalised
for the whole repertory.
Keywords
Bayes - Repertory - Likelihood Ratio - Symptoms - Homeopathy
