ObjectiveTo analyze the characteristics of outpatients in Neurological Department in different periods and to provide guidance on medical decision-making for Neurological Department. MethodOutpatients treated between August and September 1994 (group 1994) and between August and September 2012 (group 2012) in the Department of Neurology of a general hospital were included in our study. Group 1994 had 1 000 consecutive patients; while group 2012 had 18 995 patients excluding those repeat visitors, patients waiting to be treated (including dizziness), patients misdiagnosed to have severe mental diseases (such as schizophrenia), and patients with physical diseases. Then we compared the demographic and disease distribution of patients in the two groups, and performed statistical analysis. ResultsCompared with the year 1994, the year 2012 had more female, less young and more elderly patients (P<0.05). The constituent ratio of neurosis, cerebrovascular disease, internal medicine diseases with nerve damage, peripheral nerve disease, brain post-traumatic syndrome, intracranial space-occupying lesions reduced significantly while headache, epilepsy, extrapyramidal disease (such as Parkinson's disease) increased significantly (P<0.01) with no obvious change of constituent ratio of muscle disease, neuropathic muscular dystrophy, spinal cord, brain atrophy and dementia diseases. ConclusionsThere are significant changes in characteristics of neurology clinical patients between 1994 and 2012. Revelation of these differences can provide evidence for the optimization of outpatient resources allocation and the prevention policy.
In response to the public health emergency and other urgent needs, World Health Organization (WHO) developed the concept and methodology of rapid advice guidelines (RAGs) in 2006. Compared with the standard guideline, striving to minimize the risk of bias, the RAG shortens the time to 1-3 months from more than 2 years. This study introduces the background, definition, application condition and performing methods of RAGs, and uses an example to clarify it, thus to provide a reference for the guideline development of public health emergency and other urgent need in China.
Currently there is no tool designed specifically to assess the risk of bias in the design, conduct or analysis of systematic reviews. ROBIS (Risk Of Bias In Systematic reviews), which was developed lately, aims mainly to assess the risk of bias in the conduct and result interpretation of systematic reviews relating to interventions, etiology, diagnosis and prognosis, as well as the relevance of the systematic review questions and the practice questions that their users want to address. This paper aims to introduce the ROBIS tool to Chinese systematic review developers, guideline developers and other researchers to promote the comprehension of it and its application, so as to improve the quality of systematic reviews in China.
With the perspective of evidence-based medicine, this review aims to investigate the effectiveness and safety of off-label drug use of bevacizumab for eye disease, and explore the barriers to further study. And then, suggestions for the supported evidence and clinical use of off-label drug use will be provided based on this case.
ObjectiveTo interpret ROBIS, a new tool to evaluate the risk of bias in systematic reviews, to promote the comprehension of it and its proper application. MethodsWe explained each item of ROBIS tool, used it to evaluate the risk of bias of a selected intervention review whose title was Cyclophosphamide for Primary Nephrotic Syndrome of Children: A Systematic Review, and judged the risk of bias in the review. ResultsThe selected systematic review as a whole was rated as “high risk of bias”, because there existed high risk of bias in domain 2 to 4, namely identification and selection of studies, data collection and study appraisal, synthesis and findings. The risk of bias in domain 1 (study eligibility criteria) was low. The relevance of identified studies and the review’s research question was appropriately considered and the reviewers avoided emphasizing results on the basis of their statistical significance. ConclusionROBIS is a new tool worthy of being recommended to evaluate risk of bias in systematic reviews. Reviewers should use ROBIS items as standards to conduct and produce high quality systematic reviews.
The methodology of conducting systematic review of prognostic studies has received a great deal of interest in recent years. Using GRADE for systematic review of prognostic studies, five aspects should be considered:risk of bias, indirectness, inconsistency, imprecision and publication bias. The methods of using GRADE system in systematic review of prognostic studies are similar to systematic review of interventional studies, meanwhile, there are differences. Not only the uniqueness of prognostic study but also the repeating downgrade should be taken into consideration in the GRADE process. Applying GRADE to systematic review of prognostic studies would be widely accepted along with the methodology development and quality improvement of systematic review of prognostic studies.
In order to help Chinese guideline developers, clinicians, health policy makers and other relevant researchers fully understand and make appropriate use of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, Chinese GRADE Center and Guidelines Review Committee of World Health Organization (WHO-GRC) have written a series of papers about development methods, review principles and the structure and content of WHO guidelines. This is the third (also last) paper which interpreted Consolidated Guidelines on the Use of Antiretroviral Drugs for Treating and Preventing HIV Infection and Guidelines for the Screening, Care and Treatment of Persons with Hepatitis C Infection as examples with the process and steps of WHO guideline development.
In order to help Chinese guideline developers, clinicians, health policy makers and other relevant researchers fully understand and make appropriate use of the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, Chinese GRADE Center and Guidelines Review Committee of WHO (WHO-GRC) have written a series of papers about development methods, review principles and the structure and content of WHO guidelines. This is the first paper of this series introducing the basic principles and methods of development based on the WHO Handbook of Guideline Development and WHO Handbook of Guideline Development 2nd edition. We aim to provide guidance for Chinese guideline developers, and promote the development of high-quality guideline.