Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
Systematic reviews (SRs) are an important source of evidence that are used to inform decision making. As such, it is important that healthcare students are taught these on how to interpret, and judge the methodological quality of systematic reviews. Several tools currently exist to appraise the quality and risk in SRs, but its evaluation and ease of use by students have never been examined.
Objectives:
This study aims to describe the experience of using both AMSTAR2 and ROBIS tool for teaching of undergraduate pharmacy students
Methods:
Second year pharmacy students were randomly allocated 2 SRs for evaluation. Students were required to evaluate one review using AMSTAR2 while the second review was evaluated using ROBIS. We recorded the time to complete each tool and also students’ preference and perception of the ease of use for each tool.
Results:
A total of 100 students completed and rated five SRs using AMSTAR2 and ROBIS. Students took a mean of 36.2 + 13.9 minutes to complete the AMSTAR2 compared to 23.5 + 13.6 minutes using the ROBIS tool. All of the students reportedly preferred to use AMSTAR2 compared to ROBIS in grading SRs. Students reported that they felt the ROBIS tool was very subjective especially since it was their first experience in evidence synthesis. As such, students preferred AMSTAR2 due to its simple and easy to administer with clear guiding questions for each domain.
Conclusions:
The AMSTAR2 tool appears to be a valid and simple tool for teaching pharmacy students to grade SRs. Some of the signalling questions in ROBIS were judged to be very difficult to assess and understand
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
No patient or healthcare consumer involvement was planned due to the methodological character of the study.
Systematic reviews (SRs) are an important source of evidence that are used to inform decision making. As such, it is important that healthcare students are taught these on how to interpret, and judge the methodological quality of systematic reviews. Several tools currently exist to appraise the quality and risk in SRs, but its evaluation and ease of use by students have never been examined.
Objectives:
This study aims to describe the experience of using both AMSTAR2 and ROBIS tool for teaching of undergraduate pharmacy students
Methods:
Second year pharmacy students were randomly allocated 2 SRs for evaluation. Students were required to evaluate one review using AMSTAR2 while the second review was evaluated using ROBIS. We recorded the time to complete each tool and also students’ preference and perception of the ease of use for each tool.
Results:
A total of 100 students completed and rated five SRs using AMSTAR2 and ROBIS. Students took a mean of 36.2 + 13.9 minutes to complete the AMSTAR2 compared to 23.5 + 13.6 minutes using the ROBIS tool. All of the students reportedly preferred to use AMSTAR2 compared to ROBIS in grading SRs. Students reported that they felt the ROBIS tool was very subjective especially since it was their first experience in evidence synthesis. As such, students preferred AMSTAR2 due to its simple and easy to administer with clear guiding questions for each domain.
Conclusions:
The AMSTAR2 tool appears to be a valid and simple tool for teaching pharmacy students to grade SRs. Some of the signalling questions in ROBIS were judged to be very difficult to assess and understand
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
No patient or healthcare consumer involvement was planned due to the methodological character of the study.