After completing the course, the students will be able to plan and carry out their own systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Decisions in healthcare and policy depend on the highest available evidence. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses rank highest in the evidence hierarchy in informing such important decisions. Over the last decade, their use in different fields of inquiry has rapidly grown in length and breadth. In this course, participants will be taken through the rudiments of conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, covering all stages of the review process, including question formulation, study identification, data extraction, quality appraisal, meta-analysis, and many more. Tutoring is participatory, with hands-on practical sessions that allow participants to implement the skills learned. The course is suitable for postgraduate students and researchers from any field of research.

Contents:
- Formulating a research question
- Defining inclusion and exclusion criteria
- Developing a search strategy and locating primary studies
- Selecting studies and assessing their quality
- Performing fixed-effect and random-effects meta-analyses
- Exploring heterogeneity across studies
- Assessing publications bias
- Performing sensitivity analyses

Course outline

7th May 2018

8.30-16.30

Introductions and principles of systematic reviews

8:30-9:00       Introductions and general overviews

9:00-10:00     Rationale for systematic reviews

10:00-10:15   Coffee break

10:15-11:00   Question formulation for a systematic review

11:00-12:00   Lunch break

12:00-13:30   Planning and performing searches: search strategies and databases

13:30-15:00   Study screening, data extraction, and critical appraisal

15:00-15:15   Coffee break

15:15-16:30   Practical session: protocol development and group work

8th May 2018

8.30-16.30

Meta-analysis

8:30-9:30       Practical session: group work

9:30-10:00     Review of Day 1

10:00-10:15   Coffee break

10:15-11:30   Principles of meta-analysis

11:30-12:30   Lunch break

12:30-13:30   Fixed-effect versus random-effects models in meta-analysis

13:30-14:30   Heterogeneity and publication bias in meta-analysis

14:30-14:45   Coffee break

14:45-15.30   Sub-group analysis, meta-regression, and sensitivity analysis

15:30-16:30   Practical session: planning and conducting a meta-analysis

9th May 2018

8.30-15.00

Continuation of meta-analysis and group presentations

8:30-10:30     Practical session: group work

10:30-10:45   Coffee break

10:45-11:15   Review of Day 2

11:15-12:15   Lunch break

12:15-13:00