Capturing the influx of living systematic reviews: a systematic methodological survey.

Objectives: Living systematic reviews (LSRs) are an emerging type of review that continuously updates as new evidence becomes available. A previous methodological survey conducted in 2021 identified and studied all health-based LSRs. Since then, the landscape has changed, including the on-going accumulation of COVID-19 research and availability of automation tools.

Impact of physician assistants on quality of care: rapid review.

Objective: To determine the impact of physician assistants, compared with physicians, on quality of care in the context of an ongoing UK policy review.

Design: Rapid systematic review.

Search Strategy: Keyword search of three databases; search and citation tracking of previous systematic reviews.

Network meta-regression including baseline risk analysis and interactive visualizations as implemented by the MetaInsight web application.

Background And Objectives: The MetaInsight web application (https://apps.crsu.org.

Tocilizumab, sarilumab and anakinra in critically ill patients with COVID-19: a randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial.

Introduction: Tocilizumab improves outcomes in critically ill patients with COVID-19. Whether other immune-modulator strategies are equally effective or better is unknown.

Methods: We investigated treatment with tocilizumab, sarilumab, anakinra and no immune modulator in these patients.

Mapping the Kidney Disease Quality-of-Life Questionnaire Onto the EQ-5D-5L Utility Index in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis.

Objectives: Although widely used as a tool to measure quality of life, the Kidney Disease Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (KDQoL-36) does not include a measure of health utility that would enable economic analyses to be performed. This study aimed to map the KDQoL-36 onto the EQ-5D-5L utility index for patients with end-stage kidney disease undergoing hemodialysis.

Methods: For the development of the mapping function, data from a randomized controlled trial in the United Kingdom were used and consisted of 6603 observations.

Characterising the volume and variation of multiple urgent suspected cancer referrals in England, April 2013-March 2018: a national cohort study.

Objectives: To establish a methodology to categorise urgent suspected cancer (USC) referrals in England and use these categories to understand individual patient referral patterns by demographic characteristics, financial year and referral pathway.

Design: Cross-sectional population-based cohort study.

Setting: From Cancer Waiting Times data, linked to demographic information held by the National Disease Registration Service, referral-level data on all USC referrals in England between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2018.

Hematopoietic Stem Cell (HSC) Graft Cryopreservation Effects on Outcomes of Patients with Hematologic Malignancies: the Multicenter United Kingdom Experience During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The effects of graft cryopreservation on patient outcomes in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) remains unclear. In our multicenter UK study, outcomes of 926 adults receiving an allogeneic cryopreserved peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) graft for a malignant hematologic indication between June 2020 and September 2021 were compared with 1491 adults with hematologic malignancy transplanted June 2018 to September 2019 with fresh PBSC grafts. There were short delays in median platelet and neutrophil engraftment with cryopreserved hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) grafts: 18 versus 15 days (P < .

Methodologies for network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials in pain, anaesthesia, and perioperative medicine: a narrative review.

Network meta-analysis has emerged as a method for analysing clinical trials, with a large increase in the number of publications over the past decade. Network meta-analysis offers advantages over traditional pairwise meta-analysis, including increased power, the ability to compare treatments not compared in the original trials, and the ability to rank treatments. However, network meta-analyses are inherently more complex than pairwise meta-analyses, requiring additional statistical expertise and assumptions.

A case study in statistical software development for advanced evidence synthesis: the combined value of analysts and research software engineers.

Background: Since 2015, the Complex Reviews Synthesis Unit (CRSU) has developed a suite of web-based applications (apps) that conduct complex evidence synthesis meta-analyses through point-and-click interfaces. This has been achieved in the R programming language by combining existing R packages that conduct meta-analysis with the shiny web-application package. The CRSU apps have evolved from two short-term student projects into a suite of eight apps that are used for more than 3,000 h per month.

Molecular diagnoses and candidate gene identification in the congenital heart disease cohorts of the 100,000 genomes project.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) describes a structural cardiac defect present from birth. A cohort of participants recruited to the 100,000 Genomes Project (100 kGP) with syndromic CHD (286 probands) and familial CHD (262 probands) were identified. "Tiering" following genome sequencing data analysis prioritised variants in gene panels linked to participant phenotype.

Kidney Beam-A Cost-Effective Digital Intervention to Improve Mental Health.

Introduction: There is inequity in the provision of physical rehabilitation services for people living with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The Kidney BEAM trial evaluated the clinical value and cost effectiveness of a physical activity digital health intervention (DHI) in CKD.

Methods: In a single-blind, 11 center, randomized controlled trial, 340 adult participants with CKD were randomly assigned to either the Kidney BEAM physical activity DHI or a waitlist control.

Well-being interventions for emergency department staff: 'necessary' but 'inadequate' - a phenomenographic study.

Introduction: Stress and burnout are prevalent among emergency department (ED) staff in the UK. The concept of well-being interventions for ED staff is a growing area of interest and research worldwide. Various interventions are described in the literature, yet little is known about the experience of ED staff in the UK of interventions designed to support their well-being.

Paradigmatic perspectives of research on the self-regulated learning of non-Western learners in health professions education: a scoping review protocol.

Objective: The objective of this review will be to explore the paradigmatic perspectives of research on self-regulated learning in non-Western learners in health professions education.

Introduction: Studies show that there are significant cultural differences in self-regulated learning. However, a predominantly positivistic research paradigm, attempting to fit cross-cultural populations into pre-defined Western conceptualizations of self-regulated learning, has led to the disregard of these differences.

The role of the supervisor in self-regulated learning in the clinical environment: BEME Guide No. 89.

Introduction: Self-regulated learning (SRL) in medical education is important for successful learning and safe patient care. However, supervisors may be unaware of behaviours that explicitly facilitate or inhibit their students' or residents' SRL, therefore this BEME review explores the role of the supervisor in SRL in clinical environments.

Methods: A qualitative systematic review using meta-aggregation was performed, seeking to draw on the knowledge of included studies and the participants those studies represent to create context-rich recommendations that are relevant and applicable to practice.

Bayesian pairwise meta-analysis of time-to-event outcomes in the presence of non-proportional hazards: A simulation study of flexible parametric, piecewise exponential and fractional polynomial models.

Background: Traditionally, meta-analysis of time-to-event outcomes reports a single pooled hazard ratio assuming proportional hazards (PH). For health technology assessment evaluations, hazard ratios are frequently extrapolated across a lifetime horizon. However, when treatment effects vary over time, an assumption of PH is not always valid.

The development and internal pilot trial of a digital physical activity and emotional well-being intervention (Kidney BEAM) for people with chronic kidney disease.

This trial assessed the feasibility and acceptability of Kidney BEAM, a physical activity and emotional well-being self-management digital health intervention (DHI) for people with chronic kidney disease (CKD), which offers live and on-demand physical activity sessions, educational blogs and videos, and peer support. In this mixed-methods, multicentre randomised waitlist-controlled internal pilot, adults with established CKD were recruited from five NHS hospitals and randomised 1:1 to Kidney BEAM or waitlist control. Feasibility outcomes were based upon a priori progression criteria.

Evaluating the effect of a digital health intervention to enhance physical activity in people with chronic kidney disease (Kidney BEAM): a multicentre, randomised controlled trial in the UK.

Background: Remote digital health interventions to enhance physical activity provide a potential solution to improve the sedentary behaviour, physical inactivity, and poor health-related quality of life that are typical of chronic conditions, particularly for people with chronic kidney disease. However, there is a need for high-quality evidence to support implementation in clinical practice. The Kidney BEAM trial evaluated the clinical effect of a 12-week physical activity digital health intervention on health-related quality of life.

New horizons in evidence synthesis for older adults.

Evidence synthesis, embedded within a systematic review of the literature, is a well-established approach for collating and combining all the relevant information on a particular research question. A robust synthesis can establish the evidence base, which underpins best practice guidance. Such endeavours are frequently used by policymakers and practitioners to inform their decision making.

Data visualisation approaches for component network meta-analysis: visualising the data structure.

Background: Health and social care interventions are often complex and can be decomposed into multiple components. Multicomponent interventions are often evaluated in randomised controlled trials. Across trials, interventions often have components in common which are given alongside other components which differ across trials.

The NightLife study - the clinical and cost-effectiveness of thrice-weekly, extended, in-centre nocturnal haemodialysis versus daytime haemodialysis using a mixed methods approach: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Background: In-centre nocturnal haemodialysis (INHD) offers extended-hours haemodialysis, 6 to 8 h thrice-weekly overnight, with the support of dialysis specialist nurses. There is increasing observational data demonstrating potential benefits of INHD on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). There is a lack of randomised controlled trial (RCT) data to confirm these benefits and assess safety.

Exercise training and resting blood pressure: a large-scale pairwise and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.

Objective: To perform a large-scale pairwise and network meta-analysis on the effects of all relevant exercise training modes on resting blood pressure to establish optimal antihypertensive exercise prescription practices.

Design: Systematic review and network meta-analysis.

Data Sources: PubMed (Medline), the Cochrane library and Web of Science were systematically searched.

MetaBayesDTA: codeless Bayesian meta-analysis of test accuracy, with or without a gold standard.

Background: The statistical models developed for meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy studies require specialised knowledge to implement. This is especially true since recent guidelines, such as those in Version 2 of the Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy, advocate more sophisticated methods than previously. This paper describes a web-based application - MetaBayesDTA - that makes many advanced analysis methods in this area more accessible.