Background: systematic reviews of qualitative studies (qualitative evidence syntheses) are increasingly used to bring together findings from qualitative studies. A number of qualitative evidence syntheses are now published or underway in the Cochrane Library. In order to use synthesised findings to inform decisions we need methods to assess how much confidence to place in these findings.

Objectives: the objective of this workshop is to introduce the GRADE-CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research) approach to assess confidence in evidence from reviews of qualitative research.

Description: members of the GRADE-CERQual co-ordinating team will facilitate the workshop. The workshop is intended for review authors who are using or planning to use GRADE-CERQual. Attendees should have some familiarity with qualitative research and evidence synthesis methods. This is not intended to be a basic training session.
1) Presentation
- The GRADE-CERQual approach
- Making an overall assessment of confidence
- Introduction to Summary of Qualitative Findings table
2) Group discussion and/or practical exercises for each CERQual component
- Assessing the methodological limitations of the individual studies contributing to a review finding
- Assessing the coherence of each review finding
- Assessing the relevance of studies contributing to a review finding
- Assessing the adequacy of data supporting each review finding
3) Feedback