Predatory journals are a blemish on scholarly publishing and academia and the studies published within them are more likely to contain data that is false. The inclusion of studies from predatory journals in evidence syntheses is potentially problematic due to this propensity for false data to be included. To date, there has been little exploration…

Component network meta-analysis (CNMA) compares treatments comprising multiple components and estimates the effects of individual components. For network meta-analysis, a standard network plot with nodes for treatments and edges for direct comparisons between treatments is drawn to visualize the evidence structure and the connections between…

Some patients benefit from a treatment while others may do so less or do not benefit at all. We have previously developed a two-stage network meta-regression prediction model that synthesized randomized trials and evaluates how treatment effects vary across patient characteristics. In this article, we extended this model to combine different…

Cochrane reviews are known to be a high-quality source of evidence synthesis supporting health care decisions. In a recently conducted study, we analyzed the trends in epidemiology and reporting of published systematic reviews over the last 20 years. This sample of 1132 systematic reviews included 84 Cochrane reviews. We have learned several…

Contextual factors such as cultural values and traditions impact on implementation processes of healthcare interventions. It is one of the reasons why local stakeholders may decide to role out a programme differently from how it has originally been developed or described in scientific literature. This can result in different but most likely more…

The Systematic Review Toolbox aims provide a web-based catalogue of tools that support various tasks within the systematic review and wider evidence synthesis process. Identifying publications surrounding specific systematic review tools is currently challenging, leading to a high screening burden for few eligible records. We aimed to develop a…

The incorporation of evidence derived from multiple research designs into one single synthesis can enhance the utility of systematic reviews making them more worthwhile, useful, and insightful. Methodological guidance for mixed-methods synthesis continues to emerge and evolve but broadly involves a sequential, parallel, or convergent approach…

Effect direction (evidence to indicate improvement, deterioration, or no change in an outcome) can be used as a standardized metric which enables the synthesis of diverse effect measures in systematic reviews. The effect direction (ED) plot was developed to support the synthesis and visualization of effect direction data. Methods for the ED plot…

The involvement of non-researcher contributors (eg, stakeholders, patients and the public, decision and policy makers, experts, lay contributors) has taken a variety of forms within evidence syntheses. Realist reviews are a form of evidence synthesis that involves non-researcher contributors yet this practice has received little attention. In…

Mathematical modeling studies are increasingly recognised as an important tool for evidence synthesis and to inform clinical and public health decision-making, particularly when data from systematic reviews of primary studies do not adequately answer a research question. However, systematic reviewers and guideline developers may struggle with…

Network meta-analysis has been gaining prominence as an evidence synthesis method that enables the comprehensive synthesis and simultaneous comparison of multiple treatments. In many network meta-analyses, some of the constituent studies may have markedly different characteristics from the others, and may be influential enough to change the…

Racial bias in research impacts a study's relevancy, validity and reliability, though presently this aspect is not addressed in critical appraisal tools, and consequently appraisers may not take racial bias into account when assessing a paper's quality. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT) tenets that racism is ubiquitous and race a social…

Network meta-analysis (NMA) uses both direct and indirect evidence to compare the efficacy and harm between several treatments. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a statistical method that investigates relations among observed and latent variables. Previous studies have shown that the contrast-based Lu-Ades model for NMA can be implemented in…

Proposed changes to the Common Rule are proffered to save almost 7,000 reviews annually and consequently vast amounts of investigator and IRB-member time. However, the proposed changes have been subject to criticism. While some have lauded the changes as being imperfect, but nevertheless as improvements, others have contended that 'neither the…

Randomized clinical trials underpin evidence-based clinical practice, but flaws in their conduct may lead to biased estimates of intervention effects and hence invalid treatment recommendations. The main approach to the empirical study of bias is to collate a number of meta-analyses and, within each, compare the results of trials with and without…