Despite clearly established guidelines, recent audits have found the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRMAs) within neurosurgery to be relatively lackluster in methodological rigor and compliance. Protocols of SRMAs allow for planning and documentation of review methods, guard against arbitrary decision-making during the review process, and enable readers to assess for the presence of selective reporting. To aid transparency, authors should provide sufficient detail in their protocol so that the readers could reproduce the study themselves. Development of our guideline drew heavily from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) initiative. The objective of this article is not to enumerate every detail of this checklist, but to provide guidance to authors preparing their protocol, with examples, for a systematic review in neurosurgery. Particularly, we emphasize on the PICO framework - population (P), interventions (I), comparators (C), outcomes (O) - which is central to constructing a clinical question, defining the scope of the systematic review, defining and prioritizing the primary outcome, to specifying the eligibility criteria, designing the search strategy, and identifying potential sources of heterogeneity. We encourage our readers to make use of this guideline alongside the PRISMA-P 2015 statement, when drafting and appraising systematic review protocols.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10143-024-02555-1 | DOI Listing |
BMC Med Educ
January 2025
School of Nursing, Seirei Christopher University, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan.
Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) can be used in a variety of clinical settings and is a safe and powerful tool for ultrasound-trained healthcare providers, such as physicians and nurses; however, the effectiveness of ultrasound education for nursing students remains unclear. This prospective cohort study aimed to examine the sustained educational impact of bladder ultrasound simulation among nursing students.
Methods: To determine whether bladder POCUS simulation exercises sustainably improve the clinical proficiency regarding ultrasound examinations among nursing students, evaluations were conducted before and after the exercise and were compared with those after the 1-month follow-up exercise.
BMC Health Serv Res
January 2025
Amref Health Africa in Ethiopia, EPI Technical Assistant at West Gondar Zonal Health Department, SLL Project, COVID-19 Vaccine, Gondar, Ethiopia.
Background: Ethiopian healthcare relies heavily on Health Extension Workers (HEWs), who deliver essential services to communities nationwide. By analyzing existing research, the authors explore how prevalent job satisfaction is and what factors affect it. This comprehensive analysis aims to improve HEW satisfaction through targeted interventions, ultimately leading to a more effective healthcare workforce and better health outcomes in Ethiopia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRadiography (Lond)
January 2025
Radiotherapy, Leeds Cancer Centre, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, UK; Leeds Institute of Medical Research, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre, Leeds, UK.
Introduction: Using non-medicinal oral contrast agents may aid safe delivery of magnetic resonance image-guided (MR-guided) radiotherapy by improving the ability to visualise and avoid excessive radiation dose to adjacent bowel/stomach. This scoping review aims to map the literature on non-medicinal oral contrasts used in upper-abdominal diagnostic or therapeutic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to find potential candidates for employing in MR-guided radiotherapy and identify gaps in knowledge for further study.
Methods: A scoping review of non-medicinal oral contrast used in upper-abdominal MRI research followed a pre-defined protocol based on Arksey and O'Malley's framework.
BMJ Open
January 2025
Centre for Public Health, Institute of Clinical Sciences B, Royal Victoria Hospital, Queen's University Belfast School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Belfast, UK.
Objectives: This study sheds light on the available global definitions, classifications, and criteria used for rare diseases (RDs), ultrarare diseases (URDs), orphan drugs (ODs) and ultraorphan drugs (UODs) and provides insights into the rationale behind these definitions.
Design: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify existing definitions and the criteria used to define RDs, ODs and their subtypes.
Data Sources: Searches were performed in the PubMed/Medline, Embase, Scopus and Web of Science (Science and Social Sciences Citation Index) databases covering articles published from 1985 to 2021.
BMJ Open
January 2025
Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Objectives: How are socioeconomic inequalities modified by, or how do they interact with, preterm birth?
Design: Narrative systematic review of quantitative observational studies of an interaction, or effect modification, between preterm birth and socioeconomic status.
Data Sources: Five databases were searched for studies published between January 2000 and June 2020. Title and abstract were reviewed to identify articles for dual screening.
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