HP407      Half Unit
Evidence Review and Synthesis for Decision Making

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Evidence review and synthesis methods (such as systematic reviews and meta-analyses) are increasingly used to evaluate the effectiveness of healthcare interventions. A broad range of decision making bodies across the health care sector (including health technology assessment bodies, drug and medical device licensing agencies, biopharmaceutical industry, and hospitals) need individuals equipped with the methods of reviewing and synthesising the existing body of evidence by performing systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
This course will be focused on the principles of reviewing and synthesising the existing body of literature. The course will have three components. The first will provide the rationale for adopting a systematic approach for evidence review and synthesis. It will equip students with the methods to undertake risk of bias assessments of randomised controlled trials. The second component will focus on the quantitative synthesis of multiple randomised controlled trials in meta-analysis. The third component will discuss the opportunities and challenges of using evidence for decision-making.

The intended learning outcomes of this course will be the following:

• Describe the rationale for adopting a systematic approach to literature review
• Define the principal threats to validity both in individual randomised trials and collections of randomised trials
• Critically evaluate the quality of randomised controlled trials in oral and written form
• Assess heterogeneity in a collection of studies
• Design and perform a systematic review and meta-analysis evaluating a health care intervention in a group setting
• Describe the opportunities and challenges of using systematic review and meta-analysis findings for decision making

2 hours of workshops, 15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Students will work in small groups to complete weekly self-directed learning activities and meet with seminar leads for weekly feedback on their progress. A computer workshop will be held to introduce students to systematic review and meta analysis software.

Feedback given on a completed meta analysis

• Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Inter ventions (version 5.1.0, updated March 2011).
• Institute of Medicine. Finding what works in health care: standards for systematic reviews. 23 March 2011.
• Sutton AJ et al. Methods for Meta-analysis in Medical Research. Wiley, Chichester, UK, 2000.
• Cook DJ. Systematic reviews: synthesis of best evidence for clinical decisions. Annals of internal medicine 1997;126(5):376–80.
• Higgins, Julian PT, et al. The Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials. Bmj 343 (2011): d5928.

Project (100%, 3000 words)

Systematic review and meta-analysis report resembling an original article submission to a peer-reviewed journal (100%). Students will develop their meta-analysis project in a group and individually write up as their summative assessment.