Evidence synthesis involves a broad spectrum of review types, and scoping review is one such method, which, true to its name, is an effective technique to “scope” a broad topic in a research field. Unlike other types of reviews, scoping reviews can map the essential concepts underpinning a field of study and clarify working definitions […]
Health technology assessment (HTA) is a process that evaluates the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of medical technologies, such as drugs, medical devices, and diagnostic tests, in order to inform decision-making about their use in healthcare. It is a multidisciplinary approach that explores health technologies from clinical, economic, and the larger societal viewpoint. (1) Living HTA […]
Living systematic literature reviews (SLRs) are a type of SLRs that are continually updated by periodically including relevant new evidence as and when it becomes available. SLRs are often considered to occupy the top of the evidence pyramid because they synthesize evidence from different sources and present a summary of the evidence, thus enabling clinical […]
Meta-analyses summarize data from head-to-head trials to evaluate pairs of treatments that have been directly compared.[1] However, in certain circumstances, multiple therapies are of interest, and no data is available on their direct comparison. In such cases, indirect treatment comparison (ITC) is performed for synthesizing evidence surrounding treatments of interest.[2] ITC assumes that the studies […]
Improvements in healthcare digitalization and accelerated regulatory approvals of novel interventions have boosted the possibilities for gathering real-world data (RWD) and using the resultant real-world evidence (RWE) to support the generalizability, efficacy, and safety of interventions and medical devices, assisting healthcare decision-makers and policymakers.[1-5] RWE helps establish clinical guidelines, perform risk assessment for medication safety, […]
When seeking answers to clinical questions about efficacy or other aspects of a proposed intervention, health professionals often look for reliable evidence. Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) serve this purpose, by virtue of their ability to generate high-quality, verifiable, and trustworthy evidence in a systematic, transparent, and impartial manner.(1) In the new evidence pyramid, systematic reviews […]
Literature reviews play a vital role in fulfilling the primary goal of any evidence-based research by aiding in decision-making with transparent and impacting results.[1] With advances in all medical fields and with increased access to medical literature, different methodologies have been conceptualized for performing literature reviews, leading to the advent of different types of literature […]
Healthcare decisions for patients and public health policies should be supported by the best available research evidence. To ensure the hierarchy of the evidence, an evidence pyramid was conceptualized, with in-vitro studies and animal studies forming the bottom of the pyramid, expert opinions, case series, case reports, and observational studies forming the middle layer, and […]
The World Health Organization Health (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being; and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”[1] Health is influenced by medical and non-medical determinants which contribute to health inequities; the non-medical determinants of health are also referred to as the social determinants of health […]
