"Systematic Evidence Reviews to Answer Health Care Questions provides accessible, concise information about the state-of-the-art methods of systematic review, from key question formulation and selecting evidence to assessing the quality of included studies and reporting results. Key topics are organized around essential steps in conducting reviews as well as important issues or dilemmas encountered during the process. Although the state-of-the-art methods serve as core material, the book also presents different approaches that are sometimes needed when basic rules do not apply. Its perspective is practical and patient-centered. The book incorporates information from sources representing standards in the field, as well as from teaching and training materials developed at the Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center. Examples from existing projects are used to illustrate specific issues throughout the book. Medical practice guidelines, health care policies, and insurance coverage decisions are increasingly informed by evidence from clinical trials and other research of the benefits, harms, and comparisons of treatments, tests, and procedures. Systematic reviews provide a scientific approach to collecting and synthesizing biomedical information to answer questions that are essential to developing these guidelines and policies. However, standards for conducting systematic reviews have been lacking, and translation of evidence to practice has often been derailed when researchers hand off their systematic reviews to users who are unfamiliar with how to effectively use them. Several types of systematic reviews have evolved depending on the scope and goals of the review, such as technology assessments, comparative effectiveness reviews, and state-of-the-science reviews, for example. Although the different types of systematic reviews have much in common, they also vary in important ways. Each review requires methods appropriate to the specific clinical and health care questions it addresses, its scope, and the existing body of research. For example, a comparative effectiveness review of two or more medications previously studied in several high-quality randomized controlled trials would most likely use methods of statistical meta-analysis to pool trials to compare medications. In contrast, a state-of-the-science review to determine if specific symptoms are related to a health condition would qualitatively synthesize results of observational studies. As with all research, investigators are confronted with many decisions during the course of conducting a systematic evidence review. While investigators need to embrace the standards and accepted methodology of the discipline, they must also approach each question as unique in order to achieve meaningful results."--Provided by publisher
Includes bibliographical references and index