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