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Count me in as an estimator. I am happy to participate and I agree with Ahmed that this is a diagnostic accuracy test and that the methodology should be as serious as any other nice published article.




On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 7:51 AM, Ahmed Abou-Setta, M.D. <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear Colleagues,

Hope all is well. I have been following this thread very closely and I think it is developing very nicely. I believe that it is time to take it to the next level. My suggestion is that we take this project on as we would any day-to-day research project by developing a focused set of outcomes, prepare a protocol and perform the study. In essence this is a diagnostic accuracy test to determine how accurate "human intuition" and "visual accuracy" is when looking at forest plots. I believe that the results will be rewarding for all individuals involved in both performing systematic review, teaching evidence-based medicine and/or reads publications on a regular basis.

In addition, I would opt to using a set of "artificial" forest plots, rather than predefined plots, since it will allow us to create a much larger range of options in order to increase the accuracy of the results by including different factors, such as sample size, number of studies, heterogeneity etc. In addition, I would note that since the point estimate and confidence intervals can change with different pooling methods, we should include this issue as part of the question. Lastly, I would be interested if experience affects the results, and so I would suggest to perform a regression analysis against factors as the reviewer's experience as defined by number of years performing systematic review, number of publications, etc. It will interesting to see whether a seasoned reviewer is more accurate than a novice.

In conclusion, I believe that this is a great idea, and should be performed with as much professionalism as we would put in any of our daily research projects. Also I believe the results should be published to allow the greatest number of individuals to gain from our experience.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Please accept my regards.

Sincerely,

Ahmed


_______________________________________

Ahmed M. Abou-Setta, MD, PhD

Independent researcher/ systematic reviewer
Consulting Senior Systematic Reviewer,
 Chalmers Research Group, CHEO Research Institute (CHEO RI)
 Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, University of Ottawa
Member, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education & Research
Member, Menstrual Disorders & Subfertility Subgroup, Cochrane Collaboration


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