Evidence-Based Health Care

Professor Paul Aveyard, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences gives a talk on behavioural change in evidence based medicine. In our society, we tend to view motivation, the state of 'wanting it' as a prime mover of behaviour. However, research calls this into question both directly and by showing that, even among people with lukewarm motivation, we can enable behaviour change. Using randomised data mainly from randomised trials and other research, we will examine what these forces are and show how they can be harnessed to change behaviour, even when people have seemingly strong preferences.

Dr Andrew Booth gives a talk for the Realist Reviews and Realist Evaluations short course. Realist synthesis has positioned itself as a potentially valuable tool within health services research and evaluation. Opportunistically, it now inhabits the shadowy borderland between the messy domain of real world evaluation and the perceived rigorous scientific method of systematic review and evidence synthesis. Occupying this methodological demilitarised zone is not without its challenges; offering ongoing friction, perceptible tensions but not, at least to date, incandescent light! In this presentation Dr Booth will explore the extent to which realist synthesis can be seen as a bona fide member of the review family or, alternatively, as a rogue claimant syphoning off time, expertise and resources from the systematic reviews movement. He will explore his own experience on over half-a-dozen funded and unfunded realist syntheses against a backdrop of developments and current controversies within synthesis methods. Underpinning mechanisms will include conflict, rapprochement and, ultimately, reconciliation.

Dr John MacArtney gives a talk for the Evidence Based Healthcare seminar series. Qualitative researchers employ a range of different approaches to conducting qualitative analyses. In the process, they describe and interpret data, explaining the relationships between the patterns they find and interrogating their findings in various ways to provide thick descriptions of phenomena or explanatory theories. Drawing on his own qualitative analyses on experiences of cancer, Dr John MacArtney will explore some of the ways in which qualitative analysts approach these processes. This lecture will provide the opportunity to demystify an often intangible process and tackle some of the challenges facing qualitative health researchers today.

Dr MacArtney is a Senior Researcher with the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford and is a sociologist of health and illness with specific interests in the diagnosis of cancer, end of life and palliative care, and bereavement. He specialises in qualitative research.

This talk was held as part of the Qualitative Research Methods module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-based Health Care.

Professor Jeffrey Aronson, Consultant Physician and Clinical Pharmacologist, gives a talk for the Evidence Based Healthcare lecture series,

The overwhelming volume of evidence and its lack of relevance to patient care and decisions means health professionals require skills to sift evidence more efficiently: discarding what doesn't make a difference to focus on evidence that matters for health This talk will present a simple effective appraisal system based on two first steps to rapidly appraise and sift the evidence for its relevance and application to actual patient care, prior to assessing its validity.

Professor Carl Heneghan is Director of CEBM, and an NHS Urgent Care GP, and has been interested for over twenty years in how we can use evidence in real world practice.

This talk is being held as part of the Practice of Evidence-Based Health Care module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care and the MSc in EBHC Systematic Reviews.

Trials are important; very often they are also inefficient. Trial Forge aims to improve trial efficacy by identifying and then filling gaps in trial methods research. Coordination and collaboration are key: letting a thousand flowers bloom is all very well but it does mean that evidence to support trial decisions is patchy and accumulates very slowly. In addition to introducing Trial Forge, the talk will suggest ways in which you can contribute to it.

In this talk, Dr Felicity Bishop will critically reflect on mixed methods research that she has conducted and discuss the philosophical and technical challenges of mixed methods.

The integration of evidence with clinical expertise and patient values which underpins the delivery of high quality evidence-based medicine. Hard though this often is to achieve in practice, one fundamental principle is that evidence integrated into decision making should be the “current best evidence.” Whilst the amount of research, funded and published, has grown enormously, there is little to suggest concomitant increases in outputs that have led to real improvements in patient care. Equally worrying, the growth and volume of evidence has been accompanied by a corrosion in the quality of evidence, which has compromised medicine’s ability to provide affordable, effective, high value care.

Jeffrey Aronson presents a light-hearted talk on spelling in systematic reviewing. Jeff is a Consultant Physician and Clinical Pharmacologist at the Oxford University Department for Primary Health Care. His research expertise includes methods of classifying, detecting, and reporting adverse drug reactions, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Jeffrey Aronson presents a light-hearted talk on spelling in systematic reviewing. Jeff is a Consultant Physician and Clinical Pharmacologist at the Oxford University Department for Primary Health Care. His research expertise includes methods of classifying, detecting, and reporting adverse drug reactions, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses.