Skip to main content

Short trial access to KSR Evidence with your NHS Wales OpenAthens account

Short trial access to KSR Evidence with your NHS Wales OpenAthens account

From 1st February until 31st March, all users of the e-Library can benefit from trial access to KSR Evidence . Institutional access can be used by searching “NHS Wales.” This should trigger the NHS Wales OpenAthens sign in process.

Share your feedback with us! If you think this database should be added to the e-Library’s database subscriptions, tell us how it’s making an impact for you:

Database feedback survey

 

About KSR Evidence:

This database includes systematic reviews and meta-analysis in healthcare, providing a critical appraisal and short “bottom line.”

Coverage:

2015 onwards

With some coverage back to 2010 on some topics.

To learn more about KSR Evidence coverage, please visit KSR Evidence and select “about us”

Support

Please see the demonstration video recorded for NHS Wales e-Library users

 

A KSR explanation on how categories of bias are assigned

Systematic reviews are critically appraised using criteria based on the Risk of Bias Assessment Tool ROBIS. KSR Evidence uses an adapted version of this tool to enable us to provide the necessary summary information which will be useful to busy healthcare professionals, researchers, and other end users. The risk of bias tool looks at four domains:

  • Study eligibility criteria
  • Identification and selection of studies
  • Data collection and study appraisal
  • Synthesis and findings

 

Each of these domains contain a number of signalling questions for the appraiser to review and answer.  From these individual domains KSR Evidence provides an overall summary of the risk of bias (high, unclear or low risk of bias) and a bottom line. The bottom line will inform users whether or not the review has been conducted in line with accepted methods of undertaking systematic reviews and if the evidence is reliable.

 

We have two separate teams of highly experienced systematic reviewers, one team appraises the systematic review, providing answers to the signalling questions and then producing an overall summary, bottom line and risk of bias rating.  This is then passed on to a second team of systematic reviews who check the answers to these questions and that the critical appraisal is correct.  We have a further checking process during the editing stage to ensure that nothing is obviously incorrect.

 

Further information on the critical appraisal can be found from Critical Appraisal video

 

Training is available on request from elibrary@wales.nhs.uk