Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: When making informed healthcare decisions, people need to understand the likely risks and benefits of the treatments they are considering. 'Summary of findings' (SoF) tables help people understand key messages from Cochrane Reviews in a concise format. However, many people still have difficulty understanding the numbers and some of the concepts in SoF tables. Static SoF tables also lack formatting flexibility and limit the amount of detail that can be presented to more expert users.
Objective: To create an interactive SoF table (iSoF) that helps all users find and understand the main messages from a systematic review by allowing them to choose the amount of detail and mode of presentation that is appropriate for them to inform their decision-making.
Method: The iSoF was developed iteratively by the DECIDE project (funded by the EU) informed by feedback from stakeholders, user testing and an advisory board of international experts.
Results: iSoF tables present the key messages from an evidence summary: the most important outcomes (benefits and harms), the size of the effects, and the certainty of the evidence. They offer a layered presentation, enabling producers to tailor tables for different audiences or types of evidence or users to ‘drill-down’ for more information by scrolling over terms, concepts or interactive footnotes to find explanations. Each outcome can be viewed in several formats: plain language that describes effect sizes and the certainty of the evidence in a way most people can readily understand; absolute effects presented as numbers, text, or interactive graphic visualizations; and as relative effects. iSoF tables provide an optimal starting point for other evidence summaries of a review, as they contain all the building blocks necessary to present key findings in concise, understandable format. iSoF tables can be prepared in different languages and exported for use in other documents.
Conclusion: iSoF tables give producers and end users with varying degrees of expertise flexibility, control and support for understanding the main findings of an evidence summary.
http://isof.epistemonikos.org/#finding/5263ba01f30d0c11a53f7950
Objective: To create an interactive SoF table (iSoF) that helps all users find and understand the main messages from a systematic review by allowing them to choose the amount of detail and mode of presentation that is appropriate for them to inform their decision-making.
Method: The iSoF was developed iteratively by the DECIDE project (funded by the EU) informed by feedback from stakeholders, user testing and an advisory board of international experts.
Results: iSoF tables present the key messages from an evidence summary: the most important outcomes (benefits and harms), the size of the effects, and the certainty of the evidence. They offer a layered presentation, enabling producers to tailor tables for different audiences or types of evidence or users to ‘drill-down’ for more information by scrolling over terms, concepts or interactive footnotes to find explanations. Each outcome can be viewed in several formats: plain language that describes effect sizes and the certainty of the evidence in a way most people can readily understand; absolute effects presented as numbers, text, or interactive graphic visualizations; and as relative effects. iSoF tables provide an optimal starting point for other evidence summaries of a review, as they contain all the building blocks necessary to present key findings in concise, understandable format. iSoF tables can be prepared in different languages and exported for use in other documents.
Conclusion: iSoF tables give producers and end users with varying degrees of expertise flexibility, control and support for understanding the main findings of an evidence summary.
http://isof.epistemonikos.org/#finding/5263ba01f30d0c11a53f7950