Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: The increase in systematic reviews of interventions to communicate with patients and involve people in their health care has meant that it is now possible to undertake a review of reviews or overview. An overview is a summary and synthesis of the findings of systematic reviews.
Objectives: To describe the development of an overview framework that synthesises the evidence from a sample of systematic reviews.
Methods: All reviews published by the Consumers and Communication Review Group (CC&CRG) were analysed. This involved:
Identifying key features critical to interpretation and application of the review results.
Extracting detailed data from reviews to address each key feature.
Developing classification schemas to consistently evaluate and summarise review results and outcomes.
Organising the information thematically via the CC&CRG scope, which classifies interventions by their primary purpose.
Results: This framework provides a way to uniformly synthesise information from a series of systematic reviews where interventions are complex and diverse.
The framework presents key review elements (eg., inclusion criteria, the setting, intervention provider and format, and the direction of the intervention processes) critical to interpretation of results.
The framework structures the review results (primary outcomes, other outcomes, adverse effects/harms), summarising them using the developed classification schema to standardise the reporting of evidence for each review.
The framework also uses a classification scheme to synthesise results in terms of outcomes of interest.
Synthesising the information from systematic reviews in this manner highlights what is known about particular interventions, and highlights gaps in the evidence and in the reporting of relevant outcomes.
Conclusions: This overview framework synthesises evidence from CC&CRG reviews. It may be adaptable to overviews of other systematic reviews, eg., those of interventions to improve communication with, and ensure participation of, consumers in relation to particular diseases/ conditions.
Objectives: To describe the development of an overview framework that synthesises the evidence from a sample of systematic reviews.
Methods: All reviews published by the Consumers and Communication Review Group (CC&CRG) were analysed. This involved:
Identifying key features critical to interpretation and application of the review results.
Extracting detailed data from reviews to address each key feature.
Developing classification schemas to consistently evaluate and summarise review results and outcomes.
Organising the information thematically via the CC&CRG scope, which classifies interventions by their primary purpose.
Results: This framework provides a way to uniformly synthesise information from a series of systematic reviews where interventions are complex and diverse.
The framework presents key review elements (eg., inclusion criteria, the setting, intervention provider and format, and the direction of the intervention processes) critical to interpretation of results.
The framework structures the review results (primary outcomes, other outcomes, adverse effects/harms), summarising them using the developed classification schema to standardise the reporting of evidence for each review.
The framework also uses a classification scheme to synthesise results in terms of outcomes of interest.
Synthesising the information from systematic reviews in this manner highlights what is known about particular interventions, and highlights gaps in the evidence and in the reporting of relevant outcomes.
Conclusions: This overview framework synthesises evidence from CC&CRG reviews. It may be adaptable to overviews of other systematic reviews, eg., those of interventions to improve communication with, and ensure participation of, consumers in relation to particular diseases/ conditions.