Methods in Evidence Synthesis seminar (MESS)

Click here to join the meeting on Teams

1. Maggie Westby, reviewer with ARC West will be presenting at the MESS on Monday on risk of bias and GRADE in rapid reviews. Summary of the talk and bio for Maggie below.
2. Penny Whiting will  fill us in on the shared document she has created for us to get a great list of software available for systematic reviews.

Here is a link that will take you straight to the file:  SR software.docx

Rapid reviews: How can we rapidly Assess Risk of bias and GRADE

COVID has brought an increasing need to have quick answers to research questions. “Rapid reviews” have been around for a while (although methods are not standardised), but we are now attempting very rapid reviews (a few days, start to finish). It is still important to review the evidence properly, so that decision makers are fully informed on what the evidence says and how reliable it is.  Maggie will discuss methods for doing very rapid reviews, and would value feedback on this, especially a proposed way of doing speedy risk of bias and GRADE assessment.

Biography: Maggie is a systematic reviewer and methodologist.  She worked on NICE clinical guidelines in a range of clinical areas for 10 years, and her objective at this time was to devise methods for doing systematic reviews quickly and well, and she worked with IT developers to produce a database application to do this. After leaving NICE guidelines, she worked for Cochrane Wounds Group and then on a large HTA project at the University of Oxford.  Maggie joined ARC West in September 2021 and one of her projects is to produce some very rapid reviews. She is a member of the team putting on a short course on ‘Introduction to writing rapid reviews’, which is designed for people with little experience of reviewing.