Abstracts and Summaries—The abstract is designed to tell the reader everything they need to know without having to read the whole paper.
Introduction and Background—A case reports should begin with a background section that provides a brief understanding of the disease/disorder or potentially the treatment. The background section usually ends with a short explanation of how the disease or treatment affected the patient.
Case Presentation—A case report has a case presentation section that is patient centered and contains background on the patient, their presentation, and the symptoms they present with. This section should provide an idea of the history of the patient’s condition and an understanding of how the disorder affects the patient’s life.
Discussion—The discussion section should include dialogue on the patient’s experience, clinical observations, the patient’s diagnoses (and why those diagnoses are accurate), therapy and treatments (along with an explanation of the pathophysiology of medications and treatments), and a reflection on the patient.
Other sections—Sometimes in a case report, you’ll see sections for a differential diagnosis and/or treatment. A differential diagnosis section simply lists the items on the differential. The treatment section includes drugs and dosing information and any sort of therapy treatments. It’s also not uncommon to include an outcome or follow-up section that would include a discussion about changes in medications and treatments, reports of wellbeing or difficulty, side effects, or trouble following treatment plans.
Including Tables—Tables are a useful way to present information, but usually in a case study, the information is synthesized briefly in the text of the study, and the table appears as an appendix.
Resources—Please see the CARE Checklist (https://www.care-statement.org/checklist) to ensure you’ve addressed all necessary sections. Additional information can be found on the “Composing a Case Study” guide from the RVU Writing Center.
ENSURE THAT YOU REMOVE ANY AND ALL IDENTIFYING INFORMATION FROM YOUR CASE STUDY which might include things like dates, times, tattoos, snapshots of laboratory values, or other.
