The EU Trials Tracker, devised by the EBM DataLab at the University of Oxford, tracks which trials on the European Union Clinical Trials Register (EUCTR) have reported their results within a year of completion. Learn more about this tracker and how you need to take action.
This blog discusses the impact of humanitarian crises on mental health and provides a summary of a 2018 Cochrane Review which assessed the impact of psychological therapies on the mental health of people affected by these crises.
GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) is a prominent framework for evaluating the effectiveness of systematic reviews. This blog provides detail of the GRADE approach with useful links to further reading on this key process.
This blog introduces you to the concept of confounding. There is a clear explanation and then examples and methods to minimise the effect of confounding during study design and statistical analysis.
A beginner’s guide to standard deviation and standard error: what are they, how are they different and how do you calculate them?
This blog critically appraises a randomized controlled trial looking at the effectiveness of expiratory muscle training on the pulmonary function of patients with high spinal cord injury.
In addictions research, there’s a big emphasis on events leading up to recovery. But what about after?
In this blog, Sophia discusses the term ‘treatment-resistant depression’ (TRD) and provides a summary of a 2018 Cochrane review which assessed the effectiveness for psychological therapies for adults with TRD.
This is a Portuguese translation of the ninth in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 Key Concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims. With thanks to Ney Duarte Neto and Cochrane Brazil for the translation.
This blog explains that people often assume that early detection of disease leads to better outcomes. However screening tests can be inaccurate (e.g. misclassifying people who do not have disease as having disease). Screening can also cause harm by labelling people as being sick when they are not and because of side effects of the tests and treatments.
Carryover effects can affect outcomes and results of research, and are important to consider, particularly in the design phase of a study.
This is a Portuguese translation of the eighth in a series of 36 blogs explaining 36 Key Concepts we need to be able to understand to think critically about treatment claims. With thanks to Marília Ferreira and Cochrane Brazil for the translation.
This blog explains that increasing the dose or amount of a treatment (e.g. how many vitamin pills you take) often increases harms without increasing beneficial effects. If a treatment is believed to be beneficial, we should not assume that more of it is better.
Heidi Gardner is part of a team of researchers working on the PRioRiTy II project, a research project aiming to identify the most important things that we currently don’t know about things that affect whether people stay involved in trial. Read more about the project here and then have your say in identifying the top 10 questions about trial retention that still need answering.
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The nuts and bolts 20 minute tutorial from Tim.
Introducing a new series of 34 blogs from Students 4 Best Evidence. This series is based on a list of 34 ‘Key Concepts’ developed by an Informed Health Choices project team. These 34 ‘Key Concepts’ are things we need to understand to appraise treatment claims.
In this blog, Sasha Lawson-Frost explores what moral values underpin or justify the practice of Evidence-Based Medicine, specifically in response to a recent article which stated “the policy side of evidence-based medicine is basically a form of rule utilitarianism”.