Evidence pyramids

I read with great interest the Perspective pieces and accompanying editorial on evidence pyramids in your August 2016 journal.1–3 In my prior work as a medical policy researcher for two health insurance plans, it was disheartening to find that industries and clinicians alike not uncommonly relied on synthesised summaries and guidelines as a sole source of information, and systematic reviews and meta-analysis as a source of ‘truth’. With this in mind, I found the ‘New Evidence Pyramid’ proposed by Murad et al3 to be ingenious. It is graphically simple while conveying that quality varies in primary studies, and that there are inherent difficulties in fully relying on systematic reviews and meta-analysis without understanding the strength of the primary evidence and the methodology of the analyses. Murad et al notably omit synthesised summaries for clinical reference and society guidelines from their model,...
Source: Evidence-Based Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Letters Source Type: research