Training and Webinars

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This webinar will introduce participants to the concept of purposive sampling in qualitative evidence synthesis. Study selection in a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) can be more complex than in a systematic review of trials. The review team needs to decide whether to include all studies or to select a sample of studies, and whether to take an aggregative or configurative approach to study selection. As a QES seeks to provide an interpretation of the evidence it is not essential to identify and include every available relevant study.  One way of approaching study selection in a QES to limit the number of included studies is sampling from the studies that meet the inclusion criteria. This webinar will introduce participants to the concept of purposive sampling in qualitative evidence synthesis. Through worked examples we will explore different approaches to sampling and when QES teams can consider sampling in their reviews.

Dr Heather Ames is currently a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and an editor with the Cochrane Consumer and Communications group. She is authoring the chapter on study selection and sampling in the new Cochrane and Campbell Qualitative Evidence Synthesis Handbook. She has been working with QES for ten years and developed a purposive sampling approach as part of her PhD work.

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. Evidence Synthesis Ireland promotes evidence based healthcare policy and practice by supporting high quality, relevant systematic reviews including the synthesis of qualitative evidence.

Aim

This workshop provides authors, with an interest in learning more about the QES process, with a comprehensive overview of the approaches to and the methods for qualitative evidence synthesis. It offers an insight to the development of a protocol, introducing participants to, search methods, selecting studies, assessing the quality of studies, data extraction and approaches to synthesis.

Learning Outcomes

In this course, participants will be enabled to:

• Understand the basic principles of a qualitative evidence synthesis

• Identify the scope of their review

• Understand search methods and apply these methods to their search strategy

• Apply the criteria for selecting studies

• Understand the principles of extracting and synthesising findings from a QES

• Understand the application of Grade CERQual to QES findings

Date: 17th January 2023

Time: 8:30am – 16:00pm

Location: University of Limerick (The Pavillion, North Campus, beside Health Sciences Building & School of Medicine)

Fee: General Admission €100 / Student €50

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

Skill Level: Introductory

Target Audience: This is an introductory workshop targeted for Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers who are interested in learning about the methodology and processes involved in planning and conducting a QES.

Teaching Strategies: The workshop will consist of a mixture of short presentations, led by members of the ESI teaching faculty covering each of the stages of developing a QES, small group activities based around worked examples and exercises and plenary discussions, providing participants with the opportunity to discuss and develop their understanding of the QES process. Participants’ will also be provided with a short reading list in advance of the workshop.

Facilitators: 

Dr Linda Biesty is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at the School of Nursing & Midwifery at the University of Galway

Dr Pauline Meskell is a Senior Lecturer in Nursing & Health Research at the Department of Nursing & Midwifery in the University of Limerick

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Since 2018, significant methodological advances in how to conduct overviews of reviews have been published. This presentation briefly orients participants to some of the guidance, tools and methods recently published on overviews of reviews. I will present the methods work by our team on: (i) the prevalence of overviews, journal impact factors and number of citations, (ii) a taxonomy for categorising overviews with similar PICO eligibility criteria, (iii) how to handle overlap in primary study data across systematic reviews on the same topic, (iv) replication of the Jadad algorithm to assess discordance, (v) survey of decision makers to determine how they compare and choose amongst competing systematic review on the same topic, and (vi) development of the WISEST AI tool to automatically quality assess and compare the PICO, methods and results across systematic reviews on the same topic.

Dr Carole Lunny is a research methodologist with the Knowledge Synthesis Team, at Unity Health, University of Toronto, and is an affiliate with the Cochrane Hypertension Review Group at the University of British Columbia. She specialises in methods for research synthesis and critical appraisal. Her current research focuses on the development of a risk of bias tool for network meta-analyses, development of an algorithm to compare systematic reviews on the same question, and methods issues in overviews of reviews. She completed her PhD as a clinical epidemiologist at Cochrane Australia.  Her list of publications can be found here.

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: 23rd, 24th, 30th & 31st January 2023

Time: 10.00 am – 1.00 /1:30 pm

Places: 25 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: Have a basic knowledge of health research. Are 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 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.  The number of participants for the course is limited to 25.

Facilitators

Dr Julie Broderick, Assistant Professor, Discipline of Physiotherapy, Trinity College Dublin.

Dr Sharon Walsh, Lecturer in Economics, University of Galway.

Prof. Declan Devane, Chair in Health Research Methodology, University of Galway; Scientific Director, HRB-Trials Methodology Research Network; Director, Evidence Synthesis Ireland; Director Cochrane Ireland

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The systematic evaluation of adverse effects can pose complex methodological challenges. In this webinar, we will cover the different sources of evidence for adverse effects, and the recommended methods for conducting systematic searches. We will present the evidence to date on meeting the challenges of the retrieval of adverse effects data, and the different approaches to searching required for different types of interventions. We will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of particular techniques, as well as the inherent limitations of the data sources and (challengingly) diverse nature of adverse effects studies.

Dr Su Golder is Associate Professor within the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. She has a background as an information specialist with over 25 years’ experience in literature searching. She has specialist expertise in systematic review methodology, systematic reviews of adverse effects and using social media as a data source. She is currently an elective member of the Cochrane Methods Executive and one of the founders and co-convenors of the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group.

Dr. Yoon K Loke is Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of East Anglia, and Convenor of the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group. He has extensive experience in conducting systematic reviews of adverse effects and is the senior author of Chapter 19 in the Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews. His current work is focused on pharmacoepidemiological data and best methods of evaluating harmful effects of healthcare interventions.

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As qualitative evidence syntheses (QESs) become plentiful, and increasing numbers of authors contemplate the need to update their own QES, the need for more guidance on how to conduct an update becomes self-evident. Guidance exists for meta-ethnographies but examples remain few. Thematic synthesis and Framework synthesis lack formal guidance on updates and carry different considerations, particularly in view of the differing roles of theory and ever-vocal encouragement to consider sampling approaches. The presenter has been engaging with many of these issues while working on guidance for the forthcoming Cochrane Handbook for Qualitative Systematic Reviews.

He will start by taking the audience back to a consideration of why updates might be needed in the first place. He will then consider some of the indications for when (and when not) to update a QES, before outlining different models of update and rehearsing which of these models is most appropriate for each different type of synthesis. Issues of sampling and study richness will be briefly considered. Finally, he will conclude with current thinking on when reviewers might build on the pre-existing reviews of themselves and others such as the review of reviews (i.e. a review of multiple QES) and the living QES.  This session seeks to offer practical advice illustrated with plentiful examples.

Professor Andrew Booth, Professor in Evidence Synthesis at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, has been a systematic review methodologist for almost 30 years. He specializes in qualitative, mixed methods, realist and rapid reviews. Andrew has conducted published international QES in such topics as infant feeding, child malnutrition and attitudes to child and adolescent obesity. Andrew is a co-developer of Best Fit Framework Synthesis, one of the widely used methods of qualitative evidence synthesis. He is also familiar with the other most common methods of evidence synthesis; thematic synthesis and meta-ethnography. Andrew has been a co-convenor of the Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group (CQIMG) for over fifteen years and is a member of the GRADE-CERQual core development team. He has recently been co-authoring chapters in the forthcoming Cochrane Handbook of Qualitative Systematic Reviews. Together with colleagues in ScHARR he has been running an annual course on qualitative synthesis for over a decade. He is lead author of the textbook Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review, now in its 3^rd edition, published by Sage, 2021.

An overview of the different types of reviews will be presented and discussed. An overview of methods in conducting a systematic review, including developing the search strategy, assessing study quality, and methods for data analysis/synthesis will be addressed.

As the workshop entails a basic introduction to systematic review methods, prior experience in conducting systematic reviews is not essential.

Cost: €120 (reduced price of €100 if booked in conjunction with the main conference)

Date: 7th March 2023

Time: 9.00am – 4.00pm

Facilitator

Prof. Valerie Smith, Trinity College Dublin

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Pre-requisite: Participants will be expected to have conducted a systematic review of quantitate research, and to have knowledge of the methods for qualitative evidence synthesis

Background: In addition to understanding “what works” policy makers and practitioners often need to understand how something works, the feasibility and acceptability of an intervention, how best to implement it or whether there are unintended consequences. They may also want to understand how people value particular outcomes, or why differences in impact are seen. Qualitative evidence can often speak to these issues. Bringing together the insights from both quantitative and qualitative evidence can enhance the completeness, relevance or interpretation of the evidence base.

There are a number of ways in which quantitative and qualitative evidence can inform each other and a range of approaches and methods for mixed methods synthesis depending on the questions being asked and the data available which will be explore in this workshop.

Aim: To introduce approaches, tools and methodologies for mixed methods systematic reviews and syntheses.

The objective of this workshop is to provide an overview of:

• Approaches, tools and methodologies for mixed methods systematic reviews and syntheses

• When mixed methods design might be appropriate and appropriate designs

• How to formulate mixed methods review questions

• Approaches to searching, study selection, data extraction and critical appraisal

To provide hands-on exercises relevant to mixed methods systematic reviews and syntheses

Learning Outcomes: In this course participants will be enabled to:

• Develop appropriate questions for mixed methods systematic reviews

• Consider appropriate approaches and tools for addressing these questions

• Be aware of the implications for searching, quality appraisal and synthesis of mixed methods systematic reviews

Date: 20th & 21st March

Time: 13:00 – 16:30pm (20th) & 09:30 – 13:00 (21st)

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.

Teaching Strategies: The workshop will consist of a mixture of short presentations, small group work and plenary discussion.

Facilitator: 

Prof. Ruth Garside, Associate Professor in Evidence Synthesis, European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter.

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Investigations of transparency, reproducibility and replicability in science have been directed largely at individual studies. It is just as critical to explore these issues in systematic reviews, given their influence on decision-making and future research. In this talk, I will present data collected for the REPRISE (REProducibility and Replicability In Syntheses of Evidence) project. The objectives of the project are to evaluate in a sample of systematic reviews of interventions: (1) how frequently methods are reported completely, and how often review data and other materials are shared publicly; (2) systematic reviewers’ views on sharing review data and other materials and their understanding of and opinions about replication of reviews; (3) the extent of variation in results when we independently reproduce meta-analyses, and; (4) the extent of variation in results when we crowdsource teams to independently repeat the search, selection, data collection and analysis steps of a sample of original reviews.

Dr. Matthew Page is a Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Head of the Methods in Evidence Synthesis Unit in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Australia. His research aims to improve the credibility of syntheses of health and medical research. He co-led the development of the PRISMA 2020 statement for systematic reviews and was a member of the core group who developed the RoB 2 tool for assessing risk of bias in randomized trials. He is an associate scientific editor for the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. He frequently collaborates with clinicians on systematic reviews of interventions for a range of conditions, which often informs his meta-research agenda.

Background

For any given condition there may be a number of alternative treatment options. Network meta-analysis is an extension of pairwise meta-analysis that allows the simultaneous synthesis of data from networks of interventions. By combining direct and indirect information, network meta-analysis can inform every possible treatment comparison, even those for which no head-to-head comparisons exist.

Aim

This course will focus on the role of network meta-analyses in comparative effectiveness research for healthcare interventions.

Objectives:

The objective of this course is to examine the full process of a network meta-analysis from the planning stage and the preparation of the protocol up to the final report and publication of the manuscript. Day 3 will focus on practical sessions in R and some more advanced topics of network meta-analysis.

Learning outcomes

In this course participants will be enabled to:

• Understand the concept and the main principles of network meta-analysis
• Write a protocol for a network meta-analysis
• Understand and evaluate the assumptions of a network meta-analysis
• Interpret the results of a network meta-analysis
• Identify the limitations and potential sources of bias within a network of interventions
• Critically appraise the results from a network meta-analysis
• Synthesize the data from a network of interventions (Day 3 only)
• Create visualizations and prepare the final report (Day 3 only)

Dates: 26th, 27th & 28th April 2023

Time: 09:30 – 16:30

Location: The River Room, University of Galway

Places: 28 available for individuals who are resident in Ireland & Northern Ireland

Skill Level: Intermediate for Days 1-2, Advanced for Day 3

Prices

€250 – Student

€500 – Regular

€650 – Industry

Target Audience

Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers, librarians, information specialists, and Evidence Synthesis Ireland fellows and teaching faculty who meet the below prerequisites and would like to learn more about network meta-analysis.

Prerequisites

Participants must have a solid understanding of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and a basic knowledge of statistics including pair wise mete analysis. The program assumes this knowledge as these prerequisites do not form part of the program content. Experience with R is necessary for any participants attending Day 3.

Teaching Strategies

The workshop will consist of a mixture of lectures and interactive sessions. Day 3 will include practical sessions in R.

Facilitators:

Dr. Anna Chaimani, Senior Research Scientist, Université Paris Cité, Inserm, @AChaimani, https://www.cer-methods.com/

2^nd facilitator TBC

Date: 11th May 2023

Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm

Location: CA0005, Aras Cairnes, University of Galway

Fee: General Admission €30 / Student €15

Places: 25 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 the conduct of scoping reviews.

Pre-requisites: This course is for any health researcher, clinician, manager, policy maker who want to better conduct or evaluate scoping reviews. Skills related to other forms of knowledge syntheses (e.g., systematic reviews, realist reviews) is helpful for participants to have, but not a necessary requirement for the course. Participants must be familiar with the concept of knowledge syntheses and come to the course with a general understanding of the concept of a scoping review. 

Background:

Estimates for the generation of research evidence suggest that there is an increasing number of trials and systematic reviews published daily.  Knowledge syntheses are essential to advance practice and research through consolidation of evidence. Such reviews can also help knowledge users work more efficiently to make evidence-based decisions. Among the various types of knowledge synthesis, the scoping review has become increasingly popular. Scoping reviews are a form of knowledge synthesis that incorporate a range of study designs to comprehensively summarize and synthesize evidence with the aim of informing practice, programs and policy and providing direction to future research priorities.  As a method of knowledge synthesis, scoping reviews have potential to advance health care practice, policy and research. However, variability on the methodological conduct and reporting of scoping reviews prevents scoping reviews from fully reaching this potential.  In this course, we will focus on best practices for the conduct of scoping reviews. 

Aim:

Advance introductory knowledge on the conduct of scoping reviews  

Learning Outcomes:

In this course participants will be enabled to:

• Understand steps and best practices for the conduct of scoping reviews. 

• Distinguish between scoping reviews and other forms of knowledge syntheses. 

• Understand methods resources for scoping reviews. 

• Develop methodological skills in the conduct of scoping reviews.  
• Recognize scoping reviews of varying quality/critique a scoping review 

Teaching Strategies:

The workshop will consist of a mixture of short presentations, small group work and large group discussions.

Facilitators: 

Dr Heather Colquhoun is an Associate Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of Toronto. She is an occupational therapist, an implementation scientist and a scoping review enthusiast. Heather is an author on 9 scoping review methods papers and has participated in the development and publication of numerous scoping review protocols and papers. These projects have been completed with at least 200 different team members. She has recently been conducting a scoping review that is patient partner initiated and co-led. 

Dr Andrea C. Tricco is a Scientist and Director of the Knowledge Synthesis Team in the Knowledge Translation Program, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health & Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation. She is also a Co-Director & Adjunct Associate Professor for the Queen’s Collaboration for Health Care Quality Joanna Briggs Institute Centre of Excellence at Queen’s University. Her research program focuses on advancing the science of knowledge synthesis and responding to information needs of decision-makers. 

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How to extract, analyse and present data in scoping reviews can be challenging. This webinar will explore where and how you should extract the data from multiple evidence sources, the best approach in analyzing your collected data-including how to manage qualitative data, and novel ways to present your findings.

Dr Danielle Pollock is a Research Fellow within the Evidence-based Healthcare Research team at JBI, University of Adelaide. She is actively involved in the JBI Scoping Review methodology group, and the coordinator of the JBI Scoping Review Network. Danielle is passionate about taking the guess work out of how to do evidence synthesis.

Date: 26th May 2023

Time: 10:00am – 2:30pm

Location: Ashling Hotel, Parkgate Street, Stoneybatter, Dublin 8

Fee: General Admission €40 / Student €20

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

Skill Level: Introductory

Target Audience: Health economists, those involved in synthesis of clinical evidence and the wider research community (including healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, and decision–makers) interested in the application of health economic methodologies to inform practice and policy. 

Background:

Health economics methods are employed to provide evidence on the cost effectiveness and budget impact of health technologies and health and social care interventions. This evidence forms part of the multidisciplinary health technology assessment (HTA) process in Ireland and internationally, which is central to informing resource allocation decision-making by policy makers and practitioners within and across health systems. Moreover, given the growth in applied health economic evaluation studies internationally, evidence synthesis methods are increasingly employed to critically appraise and synthesise the health economic evidence base.  To this end, there exists a need to educate relevant stakeholders on the conduct of evidence synthesis in the context of health economic evaluation.  

Aim:

This workshop aims to firstly, provide an introduction to the methods of health economic evaluation, and secondly, to provide guidance on the conduct of systematic reviews of health economic evaluation studies.

Objectives:  

The objective of this workshop is to equip participants with the knowledge and tools to conduct a systematic review of health economic evaluation evidence.

Learning Outcomes:

In this course participants will be enabled to:

• Understand the principles and steps of the methods of health economic evaluation  

• Understand the principles and steps in conducting a systematic review of health economic evaluation evidence 

Teaching Strategies:

The workshop will consist of a mixture of presentations and participant feedback sessions. 

Facilitators: 

Paddy Gillespie, Professor of Health Economics, Health Economics and Policy Analysis Centre (HEPAC), University of Galway 

Paul Carty, Senior Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Analyst, Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) 

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: 13th June 2023

Time: 09:00 – 16:00

Location: Ashling Hotel, Stoneybatter, 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 PC 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.

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This webinar will present the Synthesis Without Meta-analysis (SWiM) reporting guideline which aims to help transparent reporting of synthesis of intervention effects sizes when the synthesis does not use meta-analysis. The guidance was funded by the Cochrane Strategic Methods Fund and provides nine reporting items to promote transparent reporting of how studies are grouped, synthesis methods used, how data are presented, and summary of the synthesis findings.

Ms Mhairi Campbell is a systematic reviewer at the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow. Mhairi has broad experience of conducting complex systematic reviews, including qualitative evidence of policy interventions, review of theories, and research investigating narrative synthesis methods in public health systematic reviews. Mhairi was lead researcher and co-investigator on the SWiM guideline project.

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: 20th, 21st, 27th, 28th November 2023

Time: 10.00 am – 1.00 pm

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

Target audience

Healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, decision makers and Evidence Synthesis Ireland fellows who are actively involved in performing a Cochrane 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, Trinity College Dublin

Dr Nuala Livingstone, Cochrane

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