What are the differences between a systematic review and a meta-analysis? Here are some tips to help you understand these two different yet related types of study.
Learn more about the Epistemonikos Foundation and its repository of healthcare systematic reviews. The first in a series of three blogs.
Learn how to use the Epistemonikos database, the world’s largest multilingual repository of healthcare evidence. The second in a series of three blogs.
As seen in a previous blog from Davide, modern neuroscience often interfaces with other medical specialities. In this blog, he provides a summary of new evidence about the potential of a therapeutic strategy born at the crossroad between neurology, immunology and oncology.
Evidence gap maps (EGMs) are graphic representations of the available systematic reviews and ongoing research on relevant topics. Learn more, and test your understanding, in this blog for beginners to the topic.
Shreya provides background and context on the importance and use of decision‐support tools via mobile devices in primary healthcare settings, whilst also summarizing a 2021 Cochrane review on this topic.
Neuroscience is a complex world, strongly linked to other medical specialties or scientific fields. This article offers an example of how basic research could be fundamental to shape the future of medicine. This is the summary of a systematic review about using particular molecules like microRNAs as new biomarkers, to obtain a more accurate diagnosis in Mild Cognitive Impairment.
In this blog post, Shreya summarizes a 2022 Cochrane systematic review titled ‘Anticoagulants for people hospitalised with COVID-19’, and provides a background to why this review was necessary.
In this blog, Carolina provides her own summary of a 2022 Cochrane Systematic Review, ‘Replacing salt with low‐sodium salt substitutes (LSSS) for cardiovascular health in adults, children and pregnant women’.
A living systematic review is a type of review which is continually updated, incorporating relevant new evidence as it becomes available.
In this blog, Tessa provides her own summary of a 2018 Cochrane Systematic Review, ‘Visual inspection for diagnosing cutaneous melanoma in adults’.
In this blog, Tessa provides her own summary of a 2015 Cochrane Systematic Review, ‘Safety of topical corticosteroids in pregnancy’.
Searching clinical trial registries is an essential tool to improve the value of systematic reviews. This is a resource review on a paper that describes whether and how this is done in published systematic reviews of pharmacotherapy and assesses their quantitative impact on meta-analysis.
Charlotte and Sophie, final year medical students, discuss a recent Cochrane review assessing the effectiveness of interventions for medical students that aim to improve interpersonal communication in medical consultations.
In this blog, Tessa provides her own summary of a 2019 Cochrane Systematic Review, “Lifestyle changes for treating psoriasis”.
Tessa, a final year medical student at Monash University (Malaysia Campus), provides her own summary of a 2018 Cochrane Systematic Review “Oral isotretinoin for acne”.
Healthcare students are often exposed to significant stressors during their studies and work. Are psychological interventions effective in fostering resilience in this cohort?
A patient’s most common reasons for visiting the dentist. While antibiotics are effective for treating numerous infections, how efficacious are they in treatment of toothache?
This blog provides an introduction to critically appraising diagnostic studies. Find out what questions are important to ask as you go through a paper.
In this blog, Roshan, a final year medical student at Monash University, provides his own summary of a 2018 Cochrane Systematic Review “Antipsychotics for treatment of delirium in hospitalised non-ICU patients”.
Emily spent some time with the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders group and as part of her learning, she used the Cochrane Interactive Learning modules. In this blog she provides a summary of what she learnt from these modules.
This blog looks at the efficacy and acceptability of benzodiazepines vs placebo in treating panic disorder. It provides a summary of a 2019 Cochrane review, looking at the clinical impact of current evidence.
Is Family Therapy effective in the treatment of Anorexia Nervosa? Emily summarises a recent Cochrane Review in this blog and examines the evidence.
Sophia discusses a recent Cochrane review entitled ‘Inpatient versus outpatient care, partial hospitalisation and waiting list for people with eating disorders’ and considers the implications of the findings.
In this blog, Neelam Khan, a fourth year dental student at the University of Manchester, looks at the latest Cochrane evidence on the full publication of study results initially presented in abstracts and reflects on the implications of the findings.
In this blog, Lucy discusses a recent Cochrane review which summarises all evidence for interventions relevant to the prevention of preterm birth (PTB) as reported in Cochrane systematic reviews (SRs).
In this blog, Sophia discusses a recent Cochrane review which asked the question: are psychological e-health interventions for children and adolescents with long-term physical conditions effective for reducing depression and anxiety?
A 2014 Cochrane Review compared the effects of using a manual toothbrush with an electric toothbrush for maintaining oral health. What’s the evidence?
This blog discusses the impact of humanitarian crises on mental health and provides a summary of a 2018 Cochrane Review which assessed the impact of psychological therapies on the mental health of people affected by these crises.
GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) is a prominent framework for evaluating the effectiveness of systematic reviews. This blog provides detail of the GRADE approach with useful links to further reading on this key process.
In this blog, Sophia discusses the term ‘treatment-resistant depression’ (TRD) and provides a summary of a 2018 Cochrane review which assessed the effectiveness for psychological therapies for adults with TRD.
This blog is an informal review of the resource ‘Teach Yourself Cochrane’.
This blog discusses the issue of assessing ‘quality’ in research, both methodological and reporting quality. Jenni, the blog author, also points readers towards a paper she has co-authored: ‘Using quality assessment tools to critically appraise ageing research: a guide for clinicians’.
Reviews tend to provide summaries of the literature on a topic. However, there are differences between them in terms of the stages and applicability of findings. This post will highlight such differences between traditional reviews and systematic reviews.
We hear the word “evidence-based medicine” too often but why is evidence-based medicine important? And what’s the difference between eminence-based medicine? This post addresses those questions and give some examples of both evidence and eminence-based medicine practice.
Advances in technology now allow huge amounts of data to be handled simultaneously. Katherine takes a look at how this can be used in healthcare and how it can be exploited.
Heidi reviews ‘Systematic Reviews in Health Care: A Practical Guide’ written by Paul Glasziou, Les Irwig, Chris Bain and Graham Colditz
Angel Wong introduces the Cochrane Textbook of Neurology, an on-line library for Cochrane systematic reviews on neurology and neurosurgery.
YouTube video series by Dr. Aaron Carroll called Healthcare Triage, where his motto is, “To the Research!”
The Systematic Review is the highest level of research design and brings available evidence to find an answer to a research question. Read Danny’s blog.
Kyungmin’s second prize entry to the Cochrane UK & Ireland Annual Symposium 2014 – Student Competition. A Prezi looking at the latest Cochrane evidence on prostate cancer screening.
Jamie’s third prize winning entry to the Cochrane UK & Ireland Annual Symposium 2014 – Student Competition. A Prezi looking at the latest Cochrane evidence.
Hala’s third prize winning entry to the Cochrane UK & Ireland Annual Symposium 2014 – Student Competition. A Prezi looking at the latest Cochrane evidence.
Anwen’s first prize entry to the Cochrane UK & Ireland Annual Symposium 2014 – Student Competition. A Prezi explaining the latest Cochrane evidence on routine scale & polish for adults.
The second set of plenary talks included topics relevant to students, such as evidence-based medical education.
Videos of the plenary talks from the recent Cochrane colloquium are available online. Alice has had a look at some of the key points raised in the first session.
Systematic reviews aren’t cheap or quick – Alice looks at some suggestions from the blogs of Jon Brassey from TRIP and Mona Nasser from Cochrane.
Cochrane Student’s Journal Club – An innovative introduction to the world of evidence based medicine.
“Preventive interventions for postnatal psychosis” is a systematic review published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2013. It aimed to investigate the best available evidence on interventions for preventing Postnatal Psychosis derived from all relevant randomized controlled trials.
Can probiotics prevent diarrhoea? A new Cochrane review says they can. This blog also walks through a few of the features of Cochrane reviews.
Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) provides many tools to help you read and appraise evidence. This tool will help you make sense of the information provided in any systematic review so you can conclude if that review is valid and reliable.
This slideshow shows how the data generated in trials and analysed in systematic reviews can be applied in clinical practice.
This slideshow from the journal EBM may help introduce you to the role of Cochrane reviews in EBM.
We can never be let down by the high caliber work of the Cochrane Library but its not just reviews that this site can offer…
A free, multilingual database. It includes systematic reviews, overviews of reviews (including evidence-based policy briefs), primary studies included in systematic reviews and structured summaries of that evidence.
Ben Goldacre setting challenges for the Cochrane Collaboration.
This is the Opening Plenary video from the Cochrane UK & Ireland 21st Anniversary Symposium 2013.
Powerpoint on young peoples involvement with systematic reviews.
Register to become an S4BE Contributor