Key concepts for assessing claims about the effects of treatments

Workshop category: 

  • Education and training
Date and Location

Date: 

Monday 17 September 2018 - 14:00 to 15:30

Location: 

Lennox 2
Contact persons and facilitators

Contact person:

Andy Oxman

Facilitators:

Oxman A1, Chalmers I2, Austvoll-Dahlgren A3
1 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Norway
2 James Lind Initiative, Oxford, United Kingdom
3 Regional Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health East and South, Norway
Target audience

Target audience: 

consumers, teachers, researchers

Level of difficulty: 

Basic
Type of workshop

Type of workshop : 

Discussion
Abstract

Abstract:

Background:
Claims about the effects of interventions are in the mass media, advertisements and personal communication daily. The ability to assess these claims and make informed choices depends on understanding and applying key concepts that are essential for making judgements about whether a claim is justified, whether comparisons are fair and reliable, and whether to take an action.

The Informed Health Choices project (www.informedhealthchoices.org) has developed educational resources for schoolchildren and their parents with the objective of improving their ability to assess claims about treatment effects. As our starting point, we developed a list of key concepts that people need to understand to assess these claims. The list currently includes 36 concepts and serves as a syllabus or curriculum.

Objectives:
The objectives of this workshop will be to discuss:

- Are these concepts sensible and useful?
- To what extent are they applicable to other types of interventions?
- How do these key concepts fit with other domains of critical appraisal and critical thinking?
- How can we promote learning of these concepts?

Description:
The workshop will be a structured discussion of the questions in the objectives. The list of key concepts is reviewed annually to allow for revisions of existing concepts or identification and inclusion of additional concepts. The discussion will feed into this.
Attachments

Attachments: 

PDF icon Key-Concepts-2017-edition.pdf

Relevance to patients and consumers: 

Patients and consumers are bombarded with claims about the effects of interventions. The ability to assess these claims and make informed choices depends on understanding and applying key concepts that are essential for making judgements about whether a claim is justified, whether comparisons are fair and reliable, and whether to take an action.