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Sifting the evidence: the Achilles heel of the evidence-based medicine (EBM) paradigm.

Gemma Healy and Nicola Pearce-Smith.
National Library for Health, UK.

ghealy_csl doesnotexist@cochrane.org yahoo.co.uk


Objective: To develop consensus-based criteria for sifting systematic reviews and meta-analyses based on research design certainty.

Summary: This workshop is led by the Cancer Specialist Library and the Screening Specialist Library, two of the UK's National Library for Health's online specialist libraries. Part of the remit of the Specialist Libraries is to identify and include systematic reviews and meta-analyses relating to their specialty, so that health professionals can find the best available evidence to answer clinical questions. The Cancer Specialist Library identifies a large number of citations in their searches for systematic reviews, but how many of these actually are systematic reviews or meta-analyses, and how can we consistently identify them? The Cancer Specialist Library has developed a set of criteria to perform a design certainty sift of references (i.e. are we certain that this citation really is a systematic review or meta-analysis?). Working with the Screening Library, these criteria were refined so that the other Specialist Libraries could adopt them, therefore providing consistency in inclusion criteria for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

The workshop will:

• discuss the importance of sifting evidence, the differences between sifting and appraising evidence, and the integration of evidence sifting into the EBM model;
• provide an overview of the different stages of sifting (i.e. removing duplicates, sifting for subject relevance, sifting for design certainty);
• discuss problems associated with sifting systematic reviews and meta-analyses;
• propose a set of criteria for sifting systematic reviews and meta-analyses based on design certainty;
• test the criteria against a set of abstracts;
• develop/consolidate criteria for sifting systematic reviews and meta-analyses based on design certainty.