Description: Prognosis studies are abundant in this era of personalized and precision medicine, which all has to do with prognosis research. Hence, systematic reviews of prognosis studies are increasingly required and conducted, to identify, critically appraise, and meta- analyse the existing evidence. Recently the PMG has developed various guidance documents and tools, ranging from TRF and protocol templates, to data extraction and risk of bias tools, to meta- analysis scripts, and guidance for reporting.

Facilitators:  Karel Moons, Lotty Hooft, Anneke Damen, Thomas Debray, Jill Hayden, Katrina Williams, Marialena Trivella, Nicole Skoetz

Target audience:  Reviewers with an interest in systematic reviews of prognosis studies; basic level of knowledge.

Number of participants:  6-30

Type of session:  Training workshop involving interactive presentations, discussions and small group exercises.

Objectives:  This half-day workshop will first introduce participants to the different types of prognosis research and explain the differences between prognosis, diagnosis and intervention studies. We will provide explicit guidance on how to define a proper review question; to design a review protocol; to search the literature; to design the data extraction form; to extract the data; to assess the risk of bias in the primary studies; and finally to meta-analyse the retrieved data and test for heterogeneity across studies. We will illustrate all this using many empirical examples, and frequently apply small group practicals and discussions.

After this workshop, participants will have a good overview of the essentials of prognosis research and systematic reviews of such studies.