Objective: The purpose of this workshop is to provide Cochrane reviewers with knowledge relevant to preparing systematic reviews of complementary and alternative medicine therapies.

Description: There is a great need to collect, synthesize, and disseminate high quality information in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Yet systematic reviewers in CAM face many challenges. CAM trials are frequently heterogeneous in intervention, control, and outcome, and therefore difficult to quantitatively synthesize; furthermore, CAM therapies are often unfamiliar to Western researchers and not always ideally suited to evaluation by double-blind randomized controlled trials. Using the example of acupuncture, this workshop will examine some of the issues that can be encountered at each stage of the CAM review preparation process. Topics to be covered include evaluating title adequacy of raised question, conducting literature searches, determining intervention classification, defining treatment adequacy, choosing controls, scoring quality, and reporting results. This workshop will be modeled after similar workshops presented at the Barcelona and Ottawa Cochrane Colloquia.

Target audience: People involved in Cochrane reviews of complementary and alternative medicine therapies.

Style: Training workshop