Description of impact
With research funding from NIHR, Cochrane, WHO and Norad, we have developed and tested two globally-used tools and two methodological guidelines, and are developing an international reporting guideline to increase the quality and value of qualitative evidence syntheses in health and social care decision-making.The CERQual tool for evaluating the confidence in synthesised qualitative findings has been adopted by GRADE, Cochrane and WHO as the gold standard approach and is recommended for use in Cochrane and WHO reviews. The forthcoming edition of the Cochrane Handbook will include reference to CERQual. Reach and impact – we want leading worldwide SR organisations to adopt CERQual to improve confidence in decision-making and commissioning of services. We have undertaken over 20 global training workshops.
The iCAT_SR tool is a new tool for categorising the complexity of complex interventions which has also been adopted by Cochrane. Reach and impact – we want leading worldwide SR organisations to recommend use of iCAT and for reviewers to adopt it to improve identification of complex intervention components in Systematic reviews. Cochrane has recommended iCAT as an optional methodological standard.
We have also developed new Cochrane Guidance on the use of social theories in complex intervention reviews – published in the Journal of Clinical Evaluation and disseminated by Cochrane. The forthcoming edition of the Cochrane Handbook will include reference to this guidance. Reach and impact – we want leading worldwide systematic reviewers to use the guide and for more systematic reviews to incorporate social theories to improve the quality of data processing and analysis.
New for 2016 is the publication of Cochrane guidelines and underpinning research on the contribution to qualitative ‘trial-sibling’ studies compared with ‘unrelated’ qualitative studies to explain complexity and implementation. Published in the Journal of Clinical Evaluation. The methodological guideline on the types of qualitative evidence to use and when in Cochrane complex intervention reviews will appear in the 2016 update of the Cochrane handbook and is an optional tool to use. This novel methodological work is the first in the field. Reach and impact – we want leading worldwide systematic reviewers to use the guide and for more systematic reviews to incorporate unrelated qualitative studies to increase the pool of data available for synthesis in complex intervention reviews.
eMERGE has just been funded by NIHR to develop international gold standard reporting guidelines for meta-ethnography which is the most common type of evidence synthesis used by health and social care decision makers. It is expected that eMERGE when developed will be adopted by all major commissioners of meta-ethnographies. Reach and impact – we want leading worldwide systematic reviewers to use the guideline to report their meta-ethnographies and by doing to improve the quality of reporting.
NICE and Cochrane (and several other global systematic review organisations have recommended the tools and incorporated into their processes)have endorsed use of CERQual in reviews.
We are collecting worldwide data on the number of organisations that have recommended the tools and the number of review authors who have used the tools in their reviews.
We will continue to conduct analyses on what impact the tools have had on the quality of systematic review processes and products and the use of these reviews by decision-makers to inform better decision-making.
Description of the underpinning research
Funded by Cochrane, NORAD, WHO, NIHR.Ongoing programme of research -
Investigating complexity in systematic reviews of interventions by using a spectrum of methods
Laurie M. Anderson, Sandy R. Oliver, Susan Michie, Eva Rehfuess, Jane Noyes, Ian Shemilt p1223–1229
Synthesizing evidence on complex interventions: how meta-analytical, qualitative, and mixed-method approaches can contribute
Mark Petticrew, Eva Rehfuess, Jane Noyes, Julian P.T. Higgins, Alain Mayhew, Tomas Pantoja, Ian Shemilt, Amanda Sowden p1230–1243
A research and development agenda for systematic reviews that ask complex questions about complex interventions
Jane Noyes, David Gough, Simon Lewin, Alain Mayhew, Susan Michie, Tomas Pantoja, Mark Petticrew, Kevin Pottie, Eva Rehfuess, Ian Shemilt, Sasha Shepperd, Amanda Sowden, Peter Tugwell, Vivian Welch p1262–1270
A methodological systematic review of what's wrong with meta-ethnography reporting.
France EF, Ring N, Thomas R, Noyes J, Maxwell M, Jepson R.
BMC Med Res Methodol. 2014 Nov 19;14:119. doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-14-119.
Protocol-developing meta-ethnography reporting guidelines (eMERGe).
France EF, Ring N, Noyes J, Maxwell M, Jepson R, Duncan E, Turley R, Jones D, Uny I.
BMC Med Res Methodol. 2015 Nov 25;15(1):103. doi: 10.1186/s12874-015-0068-0.
Using Qualitative Evidence in Decision Making for Health and Social Interventions: An Approach to Assess Confidence in Findings from Qualitative Evidence Syntheses (GRADE-CERQual). Lewin S, Glenton C, Munthe-Kaas H, Carlsen B, Colvin CJ, Gülmezoglu M, Noyes J, Booth A, Garside R, Rashidian A.
PLoS Med. 2015 Oct 27;12(10):e1001895. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001895. eCollection 2015 Oct
Qualitative "trial-sibling" studies and "unrelated" qualitative studies contributed to complex intervention reviews.
Noyes J, Hendry M, Lewin S, Glenton C, Chandler J, Rashidian A.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2016 Jan 15. pii: S0895-4356(16)00040-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2016.01.009. [Epub ahead of print]
Current use was established and Cochrane guidance on selection of social theories for systematic reviews of complex interventions was developed.
Noyes J, Hendry M, Booth A, Chandler J, Lewin S, Glenton C, Garside R.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2016 Jan 6. pii: S0895-4356(16)00005-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2015.12.009. [Epub ahead of print]
| Impact status | Ongoing |
|---|---|
| Category of impact | Health/Quality of life |