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Quality assessment of randomized trials.

Carl Heneghan and Rafael Perera.
Department of Primary Health Care, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

carl.heneghan doesnotexist@cochrane.org dphpc.ox.ac.uk

Objective: This workshop aims to give participants hands-on experience of assessing quality of published trials.

Summary: One of the ten principles of the Collaboration is to minimize bias. For this reason, assessment of the quality of trials included in a systematic review is seen as a crucial part of the review. However it is impossible to define "one size fits all" quality criteria. In this workshop we will present characteristics defined as most important in assessing the quality of a trial: randomization, allocation, objective measurement, adequate analysis, and completeness; and explore situations when it is difficult for all of these to be met.

This will be done by defining the fundamentals of critical appraisal and through examples of trials of varied conditions. The workshop will provide a clearer understanding of the use of quality assessment methods and of the limitations of pre-defined quality scores.


Level of knowledge required to attend: intermediate.