or executive summaryBackground information ‘The need for the report should be justified byclearly describing the problem for which evidenceof effectiveness is required, and describing the needsof the health care professionals and consumers whoare to benefit from the report.’ Hypotheses tested in the reviewReview methods ‘The methods used should be described in sections<l...

BACKGROUND frail older people often require tailored rehabilitation in order to remain at home, especially following a period of hospitalisation. Restorative care services aim to enhance an older person's ability to remain improve physical functioning, either at home or in residential care but evidence of their effectiveness is limited. OBJECTIVE to evaluate the effectiveness of a restorative...

OBJECTIVE Previous publications demonstrated that the presentation of treatment benefits in terms of relative risk reduction (RRR) rather than in terms of absolute risk reduction (ARR) or number of patients to treat (NNT) might favor the perception of outcome effectiveness. The objective was to perform a cognitive evaluation to assess how the manner in which risks and benefits of screening meth...

CONTEXT Folate has important beneficial effects on endothelial function, but there is limited information about folate intake and risk of incident hypertension. OBJECTIVE To determine whether higher folate intake is associated with a lower risk of incident hypertension. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Two prospective cohort studies of 93,803 younger women aged 27 to 44 years in the Nurses...

OBJECT Infection is a serious and costly complication of CSF shunt implantation. Antibiotic-impregnated shunts (AISs) were introduced almost 10 years ago, but reports on their ability to decrease the infection rate have been mixed. The authors conducted a meta-analysis assessing the extent to which AISs reduce the rate of shunt infection compared with standard shunts (SSs). They also examined c...

BACKGROUND The success of evidence-based practice depends on the clear and effective communication of statistical information. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of using alternative statistical presentations of the same risks and risk reductions on understanding, perception, persuasiveness and behaviour of health professionals, policy makers, and consumers. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched Ovid...

A recent investigation of hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer risk used a method called ‘‘floating absolute risks’’ (FARs) to compute confidence intervals for relative hazards. This method has been used in other medical studies and has received controversy. This controversy stems from the correct implementation of this method. However, there has been no direct comparison of the FAR me...

BACKGROUND Previous before-and-after studies indicate that the use of safety checklists in surgery reduces complication rates in patients. METHODS A systematic review of studies was undertaken using MEDLINE, CINAHL, Proquest, and the Cochrane Library to identify studies that evaluated the effects of checklist use in surgery on complication rates. Study quality was assessed using the Methodolo...

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a tool and guide for performing effective medical treatment. Here, as an example, EBM was applied to determine which between trabeculectomy and Baerveldt implant surgery would be more effective in a patient with a history of open-angle glaucoma. First, the author asked answerable clinical questions. Second, evidence using general search engines, such as the Coch...