Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions

by Higgins, Julian P. T.; Green, Sally

• ISBN13: 9780470699515
• ISBN10: 0470699515
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-11-24
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Cochrane Reviews	p. 1
Introduction	p. 3
Preparing a Cochrane review	p. 11
Maintaining reviews: updates, amendments and feedback	p. 31
Guide to the contents of a Cochrane protocol and review	p. 51
General Methods for Cochrane Reviews	p. 81
Defining the review question and developing criteria for including studies	p. 83
Searching for studies	p. 95
Selecting studies and collecting data	p. 151
Assessing risk of bias in included studies	p. 187
Analysing data and undertaking meta-analyses	p. 243
Addressing reporting biases	p. 297
Presenting results and 'Summary of findings' tables	p. 335
Interpreting results and drawing conclusions	p. 359
Special Topics	p. 389
Including non-randomized studies	p. 391
Adverse effects	p. 433
Incorporating economics evidence	p. 449
Special topics in statistics	p. 481
Patient-reported outcomes	p. 531
Reviews of individual patient data	p. 547
Prospective meta-analysis	p. 559
Qualitative research and Cochrane reviews	p. 571
Reviews in public health and health promotion	p. 593
Overviews of reviews	p. 607
Index	p. 633
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.