EDITORIAL

Abstract

.As the acting Editor-In-Chief for the JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports I am pleased to inform you of some of the recent developments regarding our systematic review template. These changes are in line with some of the recent methodological developments aimed at improving the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews. As of 2014 the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) has officially endorsed the recommendations from the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) working group. This international working group has developed a systematic process to establish and present the confidence in synthesized results of quantitative research through considering issues related to study design, risk of bias, publication bias, inconsistency, indirectness, imprecision of evidence, effect sizes, dose-response relationships and confounders of findings. 1 The outcome of this approach is a GRADE score, labelled as High, Moderate, Low or Very Low, which represents the level of confidence in the synthesized findings. This score is then applied to the major results of a quantitative systematic review. Key findings and important supporting information, including the GRADE score, are presented in a ‘Summary of Findings’ table or evidence profile. Summary of Findings tables have been shown to improve the understanding and the accessibility of results of systematic reviews. 2-4 With the introduction of Summary of Findings tables within JBI systematic reviews we are able to further improve upon the transparency and usability of our systematic reviews, two features where JBI is already leading the field internationally. The Summary of Findings table includes the question being investigated, the population, intervention and comparison, the outcomes assessed, estimated risk or odds for categorical data or weighted means for continuous data, relative effect, sample size as well as the number of studies which contributed to the sample, the GRADE quality of evidence for each finding, and any comments (including decisions as to why the reviewers assigned the final GRADE ranking). These Summary of Findings tables can be created using the software program GRADEPro.