GRADE Concept Paper 9: Rationale and process for creating a GRADE Ontology.

Context: As the rate of research production accelerates, the ability to efficiently and unambiguously communicate judgements relating to the synthesis, evaluation, and use of scientific information becomes paramount.

Perspective: Scientific information can be viewed as a "layered infrastructure" of data, evidence, knowledge, and use. The GRADE approach serves as a de facto data standard in this infrastructure, reducing ambiguity in claims to knowledge (in the form of judgements of certainty in the evidence when answering research questions) and level of commitment to possible solutions to problems (in the form of strength of recommendations for interventions).

Protocol: Scoping review of the association between complementary feeding, growth, and immune health in infants and toddlers-An EAACI guideline paper.

The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) is currently developing guidelines on immunomodulation and nutrition. To inform these recommendations, a scoping review will be conducted to synthesize and map the available empirical evidence on how complementary feeding affects immune health in infants and toddlers to explore the association between complementary feeding during the first year of life and immune health outcomes in children up to 3 years of age. The scoping review will be conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis Scoping Review Extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines.

Incorporating patients in the development of clinical practice guidelines.

Clinical practice guidelines are a set of recommendations developed systematically and based on the best available evidence. Their purpose is to enable healthcare providers and patients to make the best decisions regarding healthcare interventions associated with a particular clinical condition, considering each patient's specific circumstances. One element that has gained importance recently is considering patient preferences when developing healthcare recommendations to increase adherence to therapeutic measures and patient satisfaction.

Users' experience of frameworks to support evidence-informed decision-making in public health: a scoping review.

BackgroundEvidence-informed decision-making in public health (PH) is a complex process requiring the consideration of multiple perspectives and contextual factors. Evidence-to-decision (EtD) frameworks are structured approaches aiming to improve decision-making by considering critical criteria, but users' experience has not been systematically synthesised.AimWe aim to summarise users' experiences of EtD frameworks used for PH.

Frameworks to support evidence-informed decision-making in public health and infectious disease prevention and control: a scoping review.

BackgroundEvidence-informed public health decision-making (EIDM) is a complex process that must consider multiple factors.AimWe aimed to identify and describe existing frameworks supporting evidence-informed public health decision-making and their application to infectious disease.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review to describe current EIDM framework use in public health.

Alignment between the research question, design, and terminology is required in manual therapy trials: a methodological study.

Objectives: The study aimed to assess the design, reporting, and risk of bias in effectiveness trials (ETs) in manual therapy (MT), comparing pragmatic with nonpragmatic trials and trials with and without placebo controls.

Study Design And Setting: We searched MEDLINE and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for randomized controlled trials with the term "effectiveness" in the title or abstract in the field of MT from inception to January 2024. Two independent reviewers extracted data on specific study characteristics, their reporting, and risk of bias and assessed them using the PRagmatic Explanatory Continuum Indicatory Summary-2 tool (PRECIS-2).

Short versus long drug regimens for Chagas disease.

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows: To assess the effects of short versus long drug regimens (trypanocidal schemes) for Chagas disease in chronic asymptomatic stages.

Empirical evidence of observer bias in randomized clinical trials: updated and expanded analysis of trials with both blinded and non-blinded outcome assessors.

Objectives: To study the impact of lack of blinding of outcome assessors on estimated treatment effects of randomized clinical trials.

Study Design And Setting: Meta-epidemiological study. We included randomized trials with binary or measurement scale outcomes that (1) allocated patients to subtrials with and without blinded outcome assessment, or (2) had both blinded and non-blinded assessments of the same outcome.

Mismatch between evidence and related clinical recommendations about the treatment of advanced esophageal cancer patients with anticancer drugs: A critical historical review.

Purpose: to analyze the most robust research and recommendations that have informed the potential superiority of treatments with anticancer drugs over any type of supportive care for advanced esophageal cancer (EC).

Methods: We conducted a critical historical review. First, we identified randomized clinical trials (RCTs) from a previous scoping review conducted by our research group, ASTAC, updating the search strategy.

Immunotherapy or Targeted Therapy Versus Best Supportive Care for Advanced Gastric Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Trials.

Purpose: To assess the efficacy and safety of non-chemotherapy anticancer drugs (immunotherapy or targeted therapy) compared to best supportive care (BSC) or placebo for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer (GC).

Methods: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) searching (May 2022) MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, Epistemonikos, ClinicalTrials.gov, and PROSPERO.

Utilising systematic reviews to assess potential overtreatment and claim for better evidence-based research: an analysis of anticancer drugs versus supportive care in advanced esophageal cancer.

Background: Highlighting the identified gaps in evidence-based research concerning advanced esophageal cancer (EC) treatment and care, this review evaluates the efficacy and safety of anticancer drugs compared to supportive care for advanced EC patients, aiming to assess the appropriateness of usual treatments and identify the gaps that need to be filled with primary research.

Methods: We searched (May 2022) MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Epistemonikos, and trial registries (ClinicalTrials.gov and PROSPERO) for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing anticancer drugs (chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or biological/targeted therapy) with supportive care in advanced EC.

Key factors in the choice of appropriate outcomes for clinical trials.

Health research is the foundation of medical knowledge and healthcare system recommendations. Therefore, choosing appropriate outcomes in studies of therapeutic interventions is a fundamental step in producing evidence and, subsequently, for decision-making. In this article, we propose three key factors for the choice of outcomes: the inclusion of patient-reported outcomes, since they focus on the patient's perception of their health status and quality of life; the consideration of clinically relevant outcomes, which are direct measurements of the patient's health status and, therefore, will be decisive in decision-making; and the use of core outcome sets, a tool that standardizes the measurement and interpretation of outcomes, facilitating the production and synthesis of appropriate evidence for the evidence ecosystem.

Anticancer Drugs Compared to No Anticancer Drugs in Patients with Advanced Hepatobiliary Cancer: A Mapping Review and Evidence Gap Map.

Introduction: Despite being commonly recommended, the impact of anticancer drugs (ACDs) on patient-important outcomes beyond survival for advanced hepatobiliary cancers (HBCs) may not have been sufficiently assessed. We aim to identify and map the evidence regarding ACDs versus best supportive care (BSC) for advanced HBCs, considering patient-centered outcomes.

Methods: In this mapping review, we included systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental, and observational studies comparing ACDs (chemotherapy, immunotherapy, biological/targeted therapy) versus BSC for advanced HBCs.

Methodological and users' surveys on the use of the LILACS database in Cochrane reviews identified desirable improvements to the database.

Background: Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature (LILACS) is the main reference database in the region; however, the way in which this resource is used in Cochrane systematic reviews has not been studied.

Objectives: To assess the search methods of Cochrane reviews that used LILACS as a source of information and explore the Cochrane community's perceptions about this resource.

Methods: We identified all Cochrane reviews of interventions published during 2019, which included LILACS as a source of information, and analysed their search methods and also ran a survey through the Cochrane Community.

Treatment with anticancer drugs for advanced pancreatic cancer: a systematic review.

Background: Patients with advanced pancreatic cancer have a poor prognosis and high burden of cancer-related symptoms. It is necessary to assess the trade-off of clinical benefits and possible harms of treatments with anticancer drugs (TAD). This systematic review aims to compare the effectiveness of TAD versus supportive care or no treatment, considering all patient-important outcomes.

Patients' and informal caregivers' perspectives on self-management interventions for type 2 diabetes mellitus outcomes: a mixed-methods overview of 14 years of reviews.

Background: Self-management interventions (SMIs) are core components of high-quality care in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We aimed to identify and summarise the scientific evidence exploring the perspectives of patients with T2DM and their informal caregivers on outcomes of SMIs, and the key themes to enhance T2DM patient-centred care.

Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods overview of reviews.

How Do Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Value the Importance of Outcomes? An Overview of Reviews.

Objectives: We aimed to assess how patients value the importance of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) related outcomes.

Methods: Overview of systematic reviews (SRs) reporting patients' utilities or disutilities for T2DM outcomes. We searched 3 databases from inception until June 2021.

[Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of residents of three specialty medical programs].

Background: COVID-19 pandemic disturbed mental health of healthcare personnel. Residents of the specialization programs could be at risk, since they were reassigned in their functions.

Aim: To describe the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on symptoms of depression, stress, anxiety and resilient coping in residents of Anesthesiology, Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine Material and Methods: Residents were invited to answer an online survey containing the DASS-21 scale for anxiety, stress and depression symptoms and the Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS) for resilience skills.

Comparative analysis of systemic oncological treatments and best supportive care for advanced gastresophageal cancer: A comprehensive scoping review and evidence map.

Objective: To identify, describe, and organize the available evidence regarding systemic oncological treatments compared to best supportive care (BSC) for advanced gastresophageal cancer.

Methods: We conducted a thorough search across MEDLINE (PubMed), EMbase (Ovid), The Cochrane Library, Epistemonikos, PROSPERO, and Clinicaltrials.gov.

Approaching the body of evidence: Key concepts of Overviews.

The increasing production of primary research and literature reviews in the last decades has made it necessary to develop a new methodological design to synthesize the evidence: the overviews. An overview is a type of evidence synthesis that uses systematic reviews as the unit of analysis, with the aim of extracting and analyzing the results for a new or broader research question, helping the shared decision-making processes. The aim of this article is to introduce the reader to this type of evidence summaries, highlighting the differences between overviews and other types of synthesis, the unique methodological aspects of overviews, and future challenges.

Systemic Oncological Treatments versus Supportive Care for Patients with Advanced Hepatobiliary Cancers: An Overview of Systematic Reviews.

Background: The trade-off between systemic oncological treatments (SOTs) and UPSC in patients with primary advanced hepatobiliary cancers (HBCs) is not clear in terms of patient-centred outcomes beyond survival. This overview aims to assess the effectiveness of SOTs (chemotherapy, immunotherapy and targeted/biological therapies) versus UPSC in advanced HBCs.

Methods: We searched for systematic reviews (SRs) in PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Epistemonikos and PROSPERO.

Systemic oncological treatments in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer: a scoping review and evidence map.

Purpose: To identify, describe, and organise currently available evidence regarding systemic oncological treatments (SOTs) (chemotherapy, targeted/biological therapies, and immunotherapy) compared to best supportive care (BSC) for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer (PC).

Methods: We conducted a scoping review and evidence mapping, adhering to PRISMA-ScR checklist. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Epistemonikos, PROSPERO, and clinicaltrials.

Effectiveness of nonpharmacological interventions to prevent adverse events in the intensive care unit: A review of systematic reviews.

Background: Different types of interventions have been assessed for the prevention of adverse events. However, determining which patient-safety practice is most effective can be challenging when there is no systematised evidence synthesis. An overview following the best methodological standards can provide the best reliable integrative evidence.