Objectives: Ill health and treatments can affect people in different ways, making it difficult to select the most appropriate outcomes for research. Selection of outcomes to measure when assessing the effects of healthcare interventions is crucial to trials, reviews and guidelines. The development of standardised core outcome sets for all trials of effectiveness in a particular condition would make this easier. Implications for Cochrane Reviews will be discussed.
Description: This workshop will comprise a mixture of presentations and participant discussion. A presentation will set the scene for several key issues and the participants will then be given specific Cochrane Reviews to look at. They will work in groups to identify examples of non-standardised selection, measurement and reporting of outcomes, and to discuss problems this may cause for authors of systematic reviews. Subsequent presentations and group discussion will focus on existing work to design core outcome sets for clinical trials, and to identify outcomes of most importance to patients, families and carers. Participants will discuss how similar research could identify appropriate outcomes for Cochrane Reviews, and how core outcome sets can be used to help authors present their findings clearly and succinctly, such as within the 'Summary of findings' table.