Background: 'Summary of findings' tables in Cochrane Reviews can be difficult to interpret, particularly by patients and clinicians, and this may limit their use in clinical practice. Evidence flowers were originally developed as a means of expressing the results of large evidence syntheses to stakeholder groups in two research projects. In this presentation we explore the feasibility of summarising the information from 'Summary of findings' tables in the form of evidence flowers.
Objectives: To suggest a pictorial, simple and novel method of displaying the information in 'Summary of findings' tables of Cochrane Reviews to improve their accessibility to mixed audiences.
Methods: Five recent Cochrane Reviews that contain 'Summary of findings' tables were purposively selected to represent a range of types of reviews and findings, and evidence flowers were created to represent their 'Summary of findings' tables. The petals of the evidence flowers were coloured according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) evidence rating system and narrative summary of the quantitative information on the petal was kept brief and written in plain language. Effect sizes were indicated with a three-star grading system.
Results: The evidence flowers for the five reviews will be presented alongside the corresponding 'Summary of findings' tables. As the evidence in 'Summary of findings' tables is rated using the GRADE system, it was straightforward to colour the petals of the flower. Deciding on appropriate narrative summary and how to present the quantitative information was more problematic. Agreement on a standardised system for this is needed.
Conclusions: Evidence flowers are a novel and visually stimulating method for presenting research evidence. We propose that they are used in addition to 'Summary of findings' tables, making the evidence more accessible to a variety of different audiences.