Training

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This webinar will present findings from a Study Within A Review (SWAR) evaluating the use of PubReMiner, a text-mining word frequency tool, for developing systematic search strategies used in various evidence syntheses. Conducted within the Health Information and Quality Authority’s (HIQA’s) Health Technology Assessment Directorate, the study compares the sensitivity and precision of PubReMiner-generated strategies to conventional methods used at HIQA. The session will outline the methodology, key outcomes, and considerations for incorporating such tools into systematic and rapid review processes. The SWAR was embedded across multiple reviews, offering insights into the advantages and disadvantages of this approach to answering methodological research questions compared to SWARs embedded within a single review. The webinar is particularly relevant for researchers, information specialists, librarians and others involved in evidence-based practice or policy who are interested in the evaluation of emerging approaches to literature searching.

Speaker:

Andrew Dullea is a Health Services Researcher within the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Directorate in HIQA. Andrew previously qualified as a radiation therapist and worked for several years at St. Vincent’s Private Hospital where he led on the clinical implementation of surface guided radiation therapy (SGRT) and ‘tattoo-less’ radiotherapy. He later graduated from the University of Cambridge with a master’s degree in Public Health, and subsequently worked for the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) where he focused on the development and implementation of medical device and in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) health policy. Currently, Andrew works in the HTA Directorate’s ionising radiation evidence review team which deals with generic justification and the development of guidelines for exposures in asymptomatic individuals. He is also undertaking a PhD through the SPHeRE programme at the School of Medicine in Trinity College Dublin.

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: 14th & 15th October

Time: 09:30 – 17:00

Places: 15 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

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In this webinar Alison would like to share experiences of completing search summary tables and search evaluations within evidence syntheses projects. Search summary tables can help make our search methods and decisions more evidence informed. Once completed, you can discover, for example:

-which searches in which databases retrieved the included articles for your specific project

-which searches in which databases retrieved unique articles

-whether specific types of study were retrieved by searching specific databases

-which supplementary search methods retrieved additional relevant studies/articles

-were there included articles in the databases which our search did not retrieve

Reflecting on search methods at the end of, or even during, an evidence synthesis project is a good idea because it allows us to feed into update searches and future reviews. It can help make our search methods and decisions more evidence based

Speaker:

Alison Bethel is a Senior Research Fellow, Information Science, and currently works across three NIHR funded evidence synthesis groups at the University of Exeter Medical School: PenARC’s Evidence Synthesis Team, the HSDR Evidence Synthesis Centre and ISCA Evidence where she designs and runs systematic literature searches for all types of evidence synthesis projects. Alison is a co-convener for the Campbell Collaboration and is one of the UK’s Council Representatives for EAHIL. Alison also teaches within the UEMS and undertakes information retrieval research projects with her colleagues.

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Health technology assessment (HTA) is a multidisciplinary process to determine the value of a health technology to inform decision-making. A HTA comprises several domains, including clinical effectiveness, epidemiology and economic evaluation, each of which relies on evidence synthesis. When we think of evidence synthesis, we often picture systematic reviews and a formal, well-structured process for gathering and evaluating information. The need to provide a range of timely evidence syntheses on a single topic often requires reliance on data across the spectrum in terms of quality, quantity, and applicability. In this webinar we will discuss some of the challenges in evidence synthesis when the best available evidence may not answer all the questions. Given that a decision maker cannot usually wait for further high quality studies, we will highlight some of the approaches to ensuring that the evidence is presented to address decision uncertainty.

Speakers:

Susan Spillane is one of the Deputy Directors in HIQA’s HTA Directorate, and oversees the function within the Directorate which provides HTA support to the National Screening Advisory Committee. Susan has a background in pharmacy, and postgraduate training in pharmacoepidemiology, statistics, public health, and cancer research, and previously held roles at the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, and the National Cancer Institute, USA.

Conor Teljeur is Chief Scientist in HIQA’s Health Technology Assessment Directorate. He has worked in HTA since 2010, working across all domains including developing numerous economic models. He also contributed to several European methodological guidelines. Before HIQA, he worked for 12 years as a health services researcher in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care in Trinity College Dublin, with a particular interest in deprivation and spatial analysis.

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. 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.

Date: 1st, 2nd, 8th & 9th December 2025

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.

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 Web). 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 for 4 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, University College Dublin

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

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

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GRADE is the world wide standard for rating certainty of evidence in systematic reviews and moving from evidence to recommendations in clinical practice guidelines. GRADE has, however, become too complicated and the over 50 authoritative GRADE papers are disorganized and increasingly difficult to navigate. In a series of 7 papers published in the BMJ, Gordon Guyatt has led a group of GRADE experts in produce Core GRADE, the essentials of the GRADE process for paired comparisons of interventions. The series provides systematic reviewers and guideline developers with a clear and straightforward guide that includes all they need to produce rigorous systematic reviews and guidelines based on the GRADE process.This first of two webinars will provide an overview of the Core GRADE approach and deal with issues choosing the target of certainty rating, and addressing issues of precision and risk of bias.

Speaker:

Gordon Guyatt is a McMaster University Distinguished Professor.  His work has focused on Evidence-based Medicine. His work has included a key role in the creation of GRADE approach to systematic reviews and practice guidelines, and most recently a series of papers on the essentials of GRADE, Core GRADE in the BMJ. He has published over 1,000 papers many in the top journals and is one of the world’s most cited scientists.

To register, CLICK HERE

GRADE is the world wide standard for rating certainty of evidence in systematic reviews and moving from evidence to recommendations in clinical practice guidelines. GRADE has, however, become too complicated and the over 50 authoritative GRADE papers are disorganized and increasingly difficult to navigate. In a series of 7 papers published in the BMJ, Gordon Guyatt has led a group of GRADE experts in produce Core GRADE, the essentials of the GRADE process for paired comparisons of interventions. The series provides systematic reviewers and guideline developers with a clear and straightforward guide that includes all they need to produce rigorous systematic reviews and guidelines based on the GRADE process.This second of two webinars will deal with Core GRADE’s approach to inconsistency, indirectness, and moving from evidence to recommendations.

Speaker:

Gordon Guyatt is a McMaster University Distinguished Professor.  His work has focused on Evidence-based Medicine. His work has included a key role in the creation of GRADE approach to systematic reviews and practice guidelines, and most recently a series of papers on the essentials of GRADE, Core GRADE in the BMJ. He has published over 1,000 papers many in the top journals and is one of the world’s most cited scientists.

To register, CLICK HERE

Systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) aim to include all eligible studies in evidence synthesis. Unfortunately, it is now clear that many systematic reviews contain so-called problematic studies. A study could be problematic due to research misconduct (including falsification or fabrication of data) or otherwise due to critical errors. Regardless of the reason for the problems, it is important to identify and remove these studies from systematic reviews to prevent them from influencing healthcare decisions. The INSPECT-SR (INveStigating ProblEmatic Clinical Trials in Systematic Reviews) tool has been developed for the purpose of assessing trustworthiness of RCTs in order to identify problematic trials. This interactive webinar will introduce the INSPECT-SR tool by way of application to a published clinical trial. Participants will have the opportunity to use INSPECT-SR to perform trustworthiness checks themselves and will learn how the tool can be incorporated when undertaking a systematic review.

Speaker:

Jack Wilkinson is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Trials at University of Manchester. His research interests include clinical trials and evidence synthesis, and he is Statistical Editor for Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility. He has extensive experience in the conduct of integrity investigations for journals and publishers, and he leads the INSPECT-SR project, which developed a tool for the assessment of trial trustworthiness.