Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions PDF Download

Author: Julian P. T. Higgins
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 9780470699515
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
Healthcare providers, consumers, researchers and policy makers are inundated with unmanageable amounts of information, including evidence from healthcare research. It has become impossible for all to have the time and resources to find, appraise and interpret this evidence and incorporate it into healthcare decisions. Cochrane Reviews respond to this challenge by identifying, appraising and synthesizing research-based evidence and presenting it in a standardized format, published in The Cochrane Library (www.thecochranelibrary.com). The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions contains methodological guidance for the preparation and maintenance of Cochrane intervention reviews. Written in a clear and accessible format, it is the essential manual for all those preparing, maintaining and reading Cochrane reviews. Many of the principles and methods described here are appropriate for systematic reviews applied to other types of research and to systematic reviews of interventions undertaken by others. It is hoped therefore that this book will be invaluable to all those who want to understand the role of systematic reviews, critically appraise published reviews or perform reviews themselves.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309164257
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.

Author: Jonathan J. Deeks
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119756189
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy A guide to conducting systematic reviews of test accuracy In Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy, a team of distinguished researchers deliver the official guide to preparing and maintaining systematic reviews of test accuracy in healthcare. This first edition of the Handbook contains guidance on understanding test accuracy measures, search strategies and study selection, understanding meta-analysis and risk of bias and applicability assessments, presentation of findings, and drawing conclusions. Readers will also find: An introduction to test evaluation, including the purposes of medical testing, test accuracy and the impact of tests on patient outcomes Comprehensive explorations of the design of test accuracy studies, including discussions of reference standards and comparative test accuracy studies Considerations of the methods and presentation of systematic reviews of test accuracy Elaboration of study selection, data collection, and undertaking risk of bias and applicability assessments Perfect for medical practitioners and clinicians, Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy will also benefit professionals in epidemiology and students in related fields.

Author: George W. Noblit
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780803930230
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
How can ethnographic studies be generalized, in contrast to concentrating on the individual case? Noblit and Hare propose a new method for synthesizing from qualitative studies: meta-ethnography. After citing the criteria to be used in comparing qualitative research projects, the authors define the ways these can then be aggregated to create more cogent syntheses of research. Using examples from numerous studies ranging from ethnographic work in educational settings to the Mead-Freeman controversy over Samoan youth, Meta-Ethnography offers useful procedural advice from both comparative and cumulative analyses of qualitative data. This provocative volume will be read with interest by researchers and students in qualitative research methods, ethnography, education, sociology, and anthropology. "After defining metaphor and synthesis, these authors provide a step-by-step program that will allow the researcher to show similarity (reciprocal translation), difference (refutation), or similarity at a higher level (lines or argument synthesis) among sample studies....Contain(s) valuable strategies at a seldom-used level of analysis." --Contemporary Sociology "The authors made an important contribution by reframing how we think of ethnography comparison in a way that is compatible with the new developments in interpretive ethnography. Meta-Ethnography is well worth consulting for the problem definition it offers." --The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease "This book had to be written and I am pleased it was. Someone needed to break the ice and offer a strategy for summarizing multiple ethnographic studies. Noblit and Hare have done a commendable job of giving the research community one approach for doing so. Further, no one else can now venture into this area of synthesizing qualitative studies without making references to and positioning themselves vis-a-vis this volume." -Educational Studies

Author: Matthias Egger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470693142
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
The second edition of this best-selling book has been thoroughly revised and expanded to reflect the significant changes and advances made in systematic reviewing. New features include discussion on the rationale, meta-analyses of prognostic and diagnostic studies and software, and the use of systematic reviews in practice.

Author: Richard D. Riley
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119333725
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis: A Handbook for Healthcare Research provides a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental principles and methods that healthcare researchers need when considering, conducting or using individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis projects. Written and edited by researchers with substantial experience in the field, the book details key concepts and practical guidance for each stage of an IPD meta-analysis project, alongside illustrated examples and summary learning points. Split into five parts, the book chapters take the reader through the journey from initiating and planning IPD projects to obtaining, checking, and meta-analysing IPD, and appraising and reporting findings. The book initially focuses on the synthesis of IPD from randomised trials to evaluate treatment effects, including the evaluation of participant-level effect modifiers (treatment-covariate interactions). Detailed extension is then made to specialist topics such as diagnostic test accuracy, prognostic factors, risk prediction models, and advanced statistical topics such as multivariate and network meta-analysis, power calculations, and missing data. Intended for a broad audience, the book will enable the reader to: Understand the advantages of the IPD approach and decide when it is needed over a conventional systematic review Recognise the scope, resources and challenges of IPD meta-analysis projects Appreciate the importance of a multi-disciplinary project team and close collaboration with the original study investigators Understand how to obtain, check, manage and harmonise IPD from multiple studies Examine risk of bias (quality) of IPD and minimise potential biases throughout the project Understand fundamental statistical methods for IPD meta-analysis, including two-stage and one-stage approaches (and their differences), and statistical software to implement them Clearly report and disseminate IPD meta-analyses to inform policy, practice and future research Critically appraise existing IPD meta-analysis projects Address specialist topics such as effect modification, multiple correlated outcomes, multiple treatment comparisons, non-linear relationships, test accuracy at multiple thresholds, multiple imputation, and developing and validating clinical prediction models Detailed examples and case studies are provided throughout.

Author: Jonathan J. Deeks
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119756162
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy A guide to conducting systematic reviews of test accuracy In Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy, a team of distinguished researchers deliver the official guide to preparing and maintaining systematic reviews of test accuracy in healthcare. This first edition of the Handbook contains guidance on understanding test accuracy measures, search strategies and study selection, understanding meta-analysis and risk of bias and applicability assessments, presentation of findings, and drawing conclusions. Readers will also find: An introduction to test evaluation, including the purposes of medical testing, test accuracy and the impact of tests on patient outcomes Comprehensive explorations of the design of test accuracy studies, including discussions of reference standards and comparative test accuracy studies Considerations of the methods and presentation of systematic reviews of test accuracy Elaboration of study selection, data collection, and undertaking risk of bias and applicability assessments Perfect for medical practitioners and clinicians, Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy will also benefit professionals in epidemiology and students in related fields.

Author: Giuseppe Biondi-Zoccai
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783030076917
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book is the first exclusively devoted to the systematic synthesis of diagnostic test accuracy studies. It builds upon the major recent developments in reporting standards, search methods, and, in particular, statistical tools specifically devoted to diagnostic studies. In addition, it borrows extensively from the latest advances in systematic reviews and meta-analyses of intervention studies. After a section dedicated to methods for designing reviews, synthesizing evidence and appraising inconsistency in research, the application of these approaches is demonstrated in the context of case studies from various clinical disciplines. Diagnosis is central in medical decision-making, and in many other fields of human endeavor, such as education and psychology. The plurality of sources of evidence on diagnostic test accuracy poses a huge challenge for practitioners and researchers, as do the multiple dimensions of evidence validity, which include sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and likelihood ratios. This book offers an invaluable resource for anyone aiming to improve decision-making processes in diagnosis, classification or risk prognostication, from epidemiologists to biostatisticians, radiologists, laboratory physicians and graduate students, as any physician interested in refining his methodological skills in clinical diagnosis.

Author: G. Justus Hofmeyr
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119964857
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Pregnancy and Childbirth presents the best evidence for the care of pregnant women to doctors, midwives, students and parents. The logical sequence of chapters and the index give quick access to the abstracts of over four hundred Cochrane systematic reviews. The book serves both as a stand-alone reference, and as a companion to locating full reviews on the Cochrane Library. The Cochrane Library is published by John Wiley on behalf of The Cochrane Collaboration. www.thecochranelibrary.com

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781900640473
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
For adults. There is a pressing need for methodologically sound RCTs to confirm whether such interventions are helpful and, if so, for whom.