Training

This workshop will lead attendees through the complete process of guideline development with GRADE using a concrete example, starting with the selection of a relevant PICO question and ending with the formulation of a recommendation. The GRADEpro GDT software is used for this purpose. The thematic focus is on assessing the certainty of the underlying evidence as well as the strength of the recommendation. In lectures, we introduce GRADE and explain its use with examples.

Attendees will be enabled to:

• understand the basic principles of the GRADE approach and be able to comprehend the individual steps in the assessment of the evidence and their impact on the strength of the recommendation
• be able to create an evidence profile for a therapeutic intervention based on a systematic review
• have a basic understanding of the GRADE Software

Dates: 18th & 19th April

Time: 10:00 – 16:00

Places: 25 available for individuals who are resident in Ireland & Northern Ireland

Location: University of Galway

Prices: General €250; Student €140

Prerequisites: Knowledge in conducting and/or using systematic reviews as well as the basic principles of evidence-based healthcare, and the critical appraisal of research studies, especially RCTs

Skill Level: Introductory

Target Audience: Systematic review authors, guideline developers, health and social care professionals, academics, researchers, postgraduate students, decision makers, Evidence Synthesis Ireland Fellows and other professionals

Facilitators:

Prof. Declan Devane, Director of Evidence Synthesis Ireland & Cochrane Ireland, Professor of Health Research Methodology, University of Galway

Dr K.M. Saif-Ur-Rahman (Senior Methodologist, Evidence Synthesis Ireland)

Philipp Kapp (Researcher, Institute for Evidence in Medicine, University of Freiburg)

To register, click here

This webinar will consist of 3 parts:
Part 1 – pragmatic reviewing for committee decision making – Evidence is the start of the conversation,
• key differences between Cochrane systematic reviews and guideline evidence reviews
• prioritising outcomes for decision making
• not a stand-alone review – fits into a series of reviews and HE modelling

Part 2 – Presenting evidence to a decision making committee
• focusing on key committee consideration (as prioritised in the protocol discussion)
• emphasis on summarizing evidence

Part 3 – Linking evidence to recommendations
• understanding where key differences of opinion among the committee members,
• understating difference between evidence and committee experience
• explain the decision in plain English

Sarah Boyce is a Senior Technical Analyst in the guideline development team at NICE working on clinical and public health guidance. This involves working closely with guideline committees to draft recommendations. She has worked on the development of COVID-19 rapid guidelines such as ‘Managing acute COVID-19’ and ‘Managing the long-term effects of COVID-19’. She has also been involved in rapid guideline updates using a living approach to guideline development. This involved balancing the rigour needed in guideline development against the need for rapid guidance in an ever-changing context. Prior to joining NICE, Sarah worked as an evidence reviewer at BMJ for their evidence-based point of care products. Sarah holds an MSc in Molecular Medicine from the University of Essex.

Background:

This series of workshops will provide reviewers, at the beginning of their journey in conducting a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis (QES) with a comprehensive overview of the methodology and methods including a Cochrane QES reviews. The series will offer insights into the development of a protocol, introducing participants to the methods of question generation, identification of included studies, data extraction and synthesis, the GRADECERQual assessment of confidence in the findings, and presentation the review for dissemination.

Aim:

The purpose of these workshops is to familarise all participants with the steps involved in conducting a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis.

We have designed these workshops as a companion series to allow attendees to apply what they have learned, enabling them to gain practical experience before progressing to the next stage of the process.

Objective:

The objectives of the workshops are intended to provide participants with an understanding of the methods of QES and equip them with the practical skills needed to conduct such a syntheses effectively.

Workshop 1:  will provide an Introduction to QES, including overview. We will explore how you can focus your review question and search for qualitative evidence.

Workshop 2: will highlight the methods of screening and inclusion processes including selecting studies. We will demonstrate how data are extracted for a QES and a Quality Assessment is conducted.

Workshop 3: will delve into choosing a method of synthesis, and demonstrate how to synthesisinse  qualitative data and present the findings

Workshop 4: we will illustrate the process of conducting an assessment of confidence in the findings of the QES using the GRADECERQual approach, and explore methods of writing up a review for dissemination.

Learning outcomes:

The learning outcomes for participants in this series should support them to:

• develop an understanding of the principles of QES and its importance in research
• define a research question suitable for QES
• explore methods for systematically searching and selecting relevant qualitative studies
• develop the skills to assess the quality of qualitative research studies
• gain proficiency in data extraction and methods of qualitative data synthesis
• learn how to conduct an assessment of confidence in the findings of a QES
• explore strategies for presenting and reporting the findings of a QES

Teaching strategies:

The workshops will consist of a mixture of short presentations and discussions led by members of the ESI Teaching Faculty, covering each of the methods of a QES. Breakout rooms will be used for small group activities based around worked examples and exercises. These activities will provide participants with the opportunity to discuss and develop their own skills and understanding. Participants will also be provided with a reading list and additional resources.

Places: 30 places available for individuals who are resident on the island of Ireland

Overall fee: General €120; Student €60

Skill level: Introductory

Prerequisites: Knowledge of qualitative research methodologies and methods

Target Audience:

Facilitators

Prof. Pauline Meskell, Head of Department of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Limerick

Dr Linda Biesty, Associate Professor (Midwifery), University of Galway

*If your type of ticket is sold out, please join the waitlist or contact us at esi@universityofgalway.ie

Background:

As for any healthcare intervention, medical tests require thorough evaluation. Identifying the accuracy of a test is a key step in the evaluation process. Understanding other ways in which tests affect the clinical management of patients is also important – a new test may be more acceptable to patients,  easier to administer, or provide a faster diagnosis or treatment.

The accuracy of a test is a measure of how well it differentiates those with a disease or condition from those who do not. Different, sometimes complex, study designs can be used to evaluate diagnostic accuracy. Measures of accuracy are also not fixed properties of a test and may not be transferable across different populations and settings. A systematic review aims to provide an overview of currently available evidence about a test’s diagnostic accuracy. A basic understanding of study designs, potential sources of bias, and factors that might affect the applicability of a study’s findings, are essential to ensure that the included studies answer a relevant review question.

Aim

To provide an introduction to systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy.

Objectives:

The objective of this workshop is to provide an understanding of study designs to evaluate the accuracy of a test and the essential components of a systematic review of diagnostic test accuracy.

Learning outcomes

In this course participants will be enabled to:

• describe the key differences between systematic reviews of interventions and systematic reviews of test accuracy,
• be aware of study designs used to estimate and compare the accuracy of tests,
• be aware of the sources of bias and variation that occur in test accuracy studies,
• be aware of the approaches used for meta-analysis of test accuracy and interpretation of meta-analytic estimates.

The workshop does not cover how to conduct a meta-analysis of test accuracy studies.

Date: 29th April 2024

Time: 10.00 am – 12.00 pm

Places: 30 places available for individuals who are resident on the island of Ireland

Fee: General €50; Student €25

Skill level: Introductory

Target Audience: Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers, librarians, information specialists, and Evidence Synthesis Ireland fellows and teaching faculty who would like to learn more about DTA reviews

Facilitator

Jac Dinnes, PhD

Senior Research Fellow in Test Evaluation

Test and Prediction group, Institute of Applied Research,

University of Birmingham UK

*If your type of ticket is sold out, please join the waitlist or contact us at esi@universityofgalway.ie

To register, click here

Integrating the findings of a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) with the findings of a review of intervention effects can offer many insights including potential reasons for variation in intervention outcomes. QES often generate theories and explanations for why and how interventions work from the perspectives of those delivering or using them; by integrating these theories with evidence on intervention effects, review teams can offer vital information to support implementation of review findings in practice settings. However guidance on the difficult task of integrating the different evidence types is limited and there are few worked examples of methods for integration. In this webinar Katy will illustrate a wide range of different options for integrating QES and intervention evidence, drawing on real integration examples. Through these examples Katy will illustrate the diversity of integration methods and tools and critically examine their strengths and limitations.

Dr Katy Sutcliffe is an Associate Professor at the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordination Centre (EPPI Centre), Institute of Education, University College London. She is the Deputy Director of the London-York NIHR Policy Reviews Facility which produces research syntheses to support the Department of Health and Social Care’s policy decisions. Katy specialises in developing systematic review methods for producing policy-relevant evidence, in particular qualitative and mixed-methods evidence syntheses and approaches for identifying the key ingredients and underlying mechanisms of interventions.

Conducting Time-limited or resource-constrained qualitative evidence syntheses: rapid QES, QES updates and overviews (“TIME-FLIES”)

Background

Qualitative evidence synthesis has become a particular growth area within evidence synthesis and systematic reviews. It is becoming increasingly difficult to explore a health or social care topic without encountering one or more qualitative evidence syntheses (QESs). At the same time there is increasing pressure from decision-makers in policy or practice to provide timely answers to issues that relate to the acceptability, feasibility and meaningfulness of health and social care interventions. This workshop will explore three different but related routes to providing qualitative evidence within resource-limited contexts – the rapid QES, the overview of multiple QESs and the update of one or more QESs.

Aim

The aim of this workshop is to open up and fully explore the variety of responses to a demand for synthesising qualitative research speedily and efficiently. We have designed this workshop to allow attendees to apply what they learn to any type of qualitative evidence synthesis, regardless of whether it is standard or resource-constrained, with tips for productive and efficient working.

This workshop will lead attendees through the complete process of guideline development with GRADE using a concrete example, starting with the selection of a relevant PICO question and ending with the formulation of a recommendation. The GRADEpro GDT software is used for this purpose. The thematic focus is on assessing the certainty of the underlying evidence as well as the strength of the recommendation. In lectures, we introduce GRADE and explain its use with examples.

Objectives

The objective of this workshop is to provide participants with a toolkit of methods to plan and deliver a variety of QES-related outputs and the skills required to deliver them.

Learning outcomes

In this course participants will be enabled to:

• develop an understanding of how standard QES procedures can be abbreviated or accelerated to accommodate time or resource constraints
• identify how to craft a review question that is feasible within tight time-constraints
• explore methods for searching and selecting relevant qualitative studies that optimise yield within a pre-specified timeframe
• develop alternative time-efficient approaches to assessment of the methodological limitations of qualitative research studies
• gain proficiency in targeted methods of data extraction and rapid qualitative data synthesis
• explore concise and meaningful strategies for presenting and reporting the findings of a rapid QES, QES update or overview of QESs (mega-synthesis)

Dates: 22nd May 2024

Time: 10:00 – 16:00

Places: 20 available for individuals who are resident in Ireland & Northern Ireland

Location: University of Galway

Prices: General €180; Student €70

Prerequisites: A working knowledge of qualitative evidence synthesis methods.

Skill Level: Intermediate

Target Audience:

Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers, librarians, information specialists, and Evidence Synthesis Ireland fellows and teaching faculty who would like to learn more about alternatives to standard qualitative evidence syntheses, particularly when time is tight or resources are constrained.

Facilitator:

Professor Andrew Booth

Professor in Evidence Synthesis, Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), University of Sheffield and Adjunct Professor – University of Limerick.

*This workshop is for healthcare practitioners currently and exclusively engaged in delivering clinical care in Ireland or Northern Ireland.

The aim of the workshop is to give confidence to read and interpret research evidence, such that one is equipped to use evidence in decision-making. The main focus of the workshop is the use and critical appraisal of systematic reviews to support in decision-making.

Date: 11th June 2024

Time: 8.30 – 12.00 pm

Fee: €30

CPD Credits: 3.0 CPD credits have been assigned to this event

Target Audiences and Places: 30 places available for healthcare practitioners currently and exclusively engaged in delivering clinical care in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Those currently engaged in research only or with a joint post are not eligible.

Skill level: Introductory

Teaching strategies: This workshop will take place online. Participants will be sent pre-reading of a published paper to complete before the start of the session.

Facilitator: Erica Ison is the lead for the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme at the Oxford Centre for Triple Value Healthcare. She is an experienced trainer/facilitator in a range of fields and has worked with a variety of people from health and care professionals and third sector personnel to politicians, students and members of the public.

To register, click here

Clinical guidelines are invaluable tools in ensuring that patients receive the best available care, however there are many shortcomings associated with traditional guidelines, primarily their risk of becoming outdated as new evidence becomes available, and their inability to adapt to changes in policy and practice. Living guideline methods encompass a dynamic process of updating recommendations, context and scope, helping to overcome issues inherent in traditional guidelines by ensuring that the evidence base and supporting information remains up-to-date. Although living methods are still evolving, they have been successfully applied to many different topic areas including COVID-19, stroke and diabetes care. This webinar will focus on the appropriateness of living guideline, advances in living guideline methods, their successful application to critical areas of care, and challenges in keeping a recommendation ‘living’.

Heath is the Director of Evidence and Methods at the Australian Living Evidence Consortium, based at Cochrane Australia, Monash University. Prior to this, he was the Evidence Lead at the Australian Clinical Evidence Taskforce (formerly the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce) and the Australian Living Diabetes Guidelines program. Heath has previously worked within the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, where he contributed to the development of the ‘Guidelines for Guidelines’ program and has several years’ experience in developing systematic reviews and clinical guidelines with the Joanna Briggs Institute and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He is a member of the Guidelines International Network GINAHTA and GIN-ANZ Steering Committees, and co-author of the recently developed Living Guidelines handbook and associated series of papers in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, among others.

Background

One of the key features of all evidence synthesis is to conduct a systematic search. Systematic literature searching requires that we plan and run searches in a way that ensures clarity, validity and reliability. Documenting the searching process is vital to ensure transparency and reproducibility.

Aim

This workshop provides attendees with the knowledge and skills to conduct a basic systematic search of the literature including designing and running searches on key databases and identifying and selecting search filters.

Learning outcomes

In this course, participants will be enabled to:

• Design a basic systematic search strategy
• Identify and use study-design search filters
• Report the search methods

Dates: 21st June 2024

Time: 09:00 – 16:00

Location: Durkan Theatre, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, St James’s Hospital, Dublin 8

Places: 30 available for individuals who are resident in Ireland & Northern Ireland

Skill Level: Introductory

Target Audience

Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers, librarians, information specialists, and Evidence Synthesis Ireland fellows and teaching faculty who would like to learn more about systematic searching.

Teaching Strategies

The workshop will consist of a mixture of short presentations and small group activities with practical exercises. Please bring along your laptop for the exercises. Questions and discussion are encouraged. A short reading list/activity list will be sent to enrolled attendees in advance of the session.

Facilitator

Julie Glanville, an independent consultant and trainer in information retrieval. Julie has worked in systematic reviews for more than 25 years as Associate Director of York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC) (2008-2019) and Associate Director at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), University of York (1994 – 2008). Julie was a co-convenor of the Cochrane Information Retrieval Methods Group and is a co-author of the Cochrane Handbook chapter on searching for evidence and the 2020 PRISMA guidance.

*If your type of ticket is sold out, please join the waitlist or contact us at esi@nuigalway.ie

Methods for qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) are now well established and decision makers are able to access rigorous QES on issues such as patient experiences of health conditions and interventions, and contextual factors influencing intervention implementation. QES often generate theories and explanations about why and how interventions work or do not work as anticipated. By integrating these theories with evidence on intervention effects in a mixed methods synthesis, review teams can offer vital information to support implementation of review findings in practice. However, the diversity of approaches for integrating QES and effectiveness syntheses can make it challenging for reviewers to understand how best to integrate.

This two day interactive workshop delivered by co-convenors of the Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group will introduce theory and practical examples of mixed methods synthesis. During group work participants will be encouraged to think reflectively on the strengths and limitations of diverse approaches. Each day will conclude with an open forum to reflect on the day’s activities and discuss issues relating to participants’ own review activity

By the end of this workshop participants will:

• understand why and when it is useful to do a mixed methods synthesis
• be able to recognise and appraise diverse approaches and tools for mixed methods synthesis
• describe challenges, and potential opportunities, for mixed methods synthesis
• have gained hands on experience of integrating different types of evidence
• apply lessons learnt to their own review activity

Dates: 25th & 26th September

Time: 09:30 – 17:00

Places: 25 available for individuals who are resident in Ireland & Northern Ireland

Pre-requisites: Prior experience of systematic reviews but not necessarily specific experience of qualitative evidence synthesis or mixed methods synthesis

Location: Galway Bay Hotel, Salthill, Co. Galway

Prices: General €250; Student €140

Target Audience: Systematic review authors, guideline developers, health and social care professionals, academics, researchers, postgraduate students, decision makers, Evidence Synthesis Ireland Fellows and other professionals

Facilitators:

Prof. Angela Harden, Professor of Health Sciences, School of Health and Psychological Sciences, Department of Health Services Research and Management, City University of London

Dr. Katy Sutcliffe, Associate Professor, Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordination Centre (EPPI Centre), University College London

Prof. James Thomas, Professor of Social Research & Policy, Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordination Centre (EPPI Centre), UCL Social Research Unit, University College London

This workshop  will be held over four mornings and provides authors, actively involved in conducting a systematic review, with confidence to assess a wide range of data types. It offers an insight into more complex methods of meta-analysis. This workshop also includes an overview on how to produce a summary of findings table for use in your review.

Date: 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th October 2024

Time: 10.00 am – 1.00 pm

Places: 20 places available for individuals who are resident on the island of Ireland

Fee: €150 General & €80 Student

Target audience

Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers and Evidence Synthesis Ireland fellows who are actively involved in performing a systematic review.

Prerequisites

Participants should at least have completed their review protocol, developed and conducted their search strategy and begun data extraction and analysis.

Background

Health care policy and practice decisions should be based on a synthesis of the global body of evidence rather than relying on individual studies. Cochrane Ireland and Evidence Synthesis Ireland promote evidence based healthcare policy and practice by supporting high quality, relevant systematic reviews and other synthesised research evidence.

Aim

This workshop provides authors, actively involved in conducting a systematic review, with confidence to assess a wide range of data types. It offers an insight into more complex methods of meta-analysis.

Learning outcomes

In this course participants will be enabled to:

• Understand how to identify, extract and analyse dichotomous and continuous data
• Understand more complex meta-analysis methods including use of Generic Inverse Variance Meta-analysis
• Understand principles of analysis of multi-arm trials, cluster and cross-over trial designs

Teaching strategies

This course consists of online workshops with of a mixture of short presentations, small group activities and practical demonstrations using Cochrane software (RevMan 5.4.1). In addition, participants will have access to Cochrane Interactive Learning modules and will be required to complete a set of modules prior to workshops. Access to the Cochrane Interactive Learning modules will be made available for4 weeks before and 4 weeks after the workshop and will be free of charge thanks to the support of Cochrane Training.

Facilitators

Prof. Valerie Smith, Professor of Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin

Dr Nuala Livingstone, Senior Quality Assurance Editor, Cochrane Editorial & Methods Department

Course content

• Data Collection overview
• Dichotomous Data: Extraction and Analysis
• Continuous Data: Extraction and Analysis
• Standardised Mean Difference
• Introduction to Heterogeneity – heterogeneity statistics, fixed and random effects models, dealing with heterogeneity
• Sensitivity Analysis
• Generic Inverse Variance Meta-analysis: overview
• Multiplicity Issues: Multi-arm trials, Cluster and Cross-over designs
• Practical demonstration in RevMan

*If your type of ticket is sold out, please join the waitlist or contact us at esi@universityofgalway.ie

This workshop will be held over four mornings and provides authors, at the beginning of the systematic review process, with an in-depth understanding of how reviews are planned and conducted. It offers an insight to the development of a protocol, introducing participants to methodology, search methods, data extraction, risk of bias assessment and meta-analysis.

Date: 4th, 5th, 11th & 12th November 2024

Time: 10.00 am – 1.00/1:30 pm

Places: 30 available for individuals who are resident on the island of Ireland

Fee: General €150; Student €80

Skill level: Introductory

Target Audience: Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers and Evidence Synthesis Ireland fellows who have identified a review topic and are ready to begin working on their protocol.

Prerequisites: A basic knowledge of health research. Interested in learning more on the methods of a systematic review.

Teaching strategies: The workshop will consist of a mixture of short presentations, led by members of the Cochrane Ireland & ESI teaching faculty covering each of the stages of developing a systematic review protocol, small group activities and plenary discussions, providing participants with the opportunity to develop and refine their protocol. This course will include blended learning with two months free access to Cochrane Interactive Learning self-directed modules, a number of which will be required study prior to the workshop.

Facilitators

Prof. Anne Matthews, Full Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing, Psychotherapy & Community Health, Dublin City University

Ciara Gleeson, Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist, Respiratory Assessment Unit, St. James’s Hospital, Dublin

*If your type of ticket is sold out, please join the waitlist or contact us at esi@universityofgalway.ie