Tenth annual Cochrane in Ireland conference “From evidence to clinical guidelines” took place on 24 January 2014 at School of Nursing& Human Sciences, Dublin City University.
The 7-hours program kicked off with a welcome by Professor John Costello, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science and Health, Dublin City University, followed by the National Clinical Effectiveness Agenda of Dr Kathleen MacLellan, Director National Clinical Effectiveness Committee, Department of Health, Dublin.
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| Figure 1 Yellow arrow card |
Mike Clarke’s (Professor & Director of MRC Methodology Hub, Queen’s University Belfast) random thoughts about randomised trials covered some of the more unusual things people have studied. There are approximately 25000 new randomised trials every year, leading to around 700 000 trials registered in CENTRAL Cochrane database. From this overwhelming amount of evidence, Dr Clarke cherry-picked the most unusual, controversial and interesting trials. His presentation started by distributing yellow-arrow cards to delegates in anticipation of active engagement (See figure 1).
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| Figure 2 Votes and Mike Clarke |
Dr Clarke’s random thoughts started with sweets as tip boosters and continued through gamgee hats to lipsticks, restaurants and vegetables, organ music, citruses, chocolate and space trials – a truly spectacular collection. We all voted on Clarke’s provoking questions about these trials (shown in figure 2): did sweets increase, decrease or unchanged the size of the tip? Does smiley face make more difference in tips size than a hand-written thank you? How beneficial is doodling while working or phone-calling? Mike encouraged us to relate each of these entertaining questions to bigger dilemmas about trials, for example, who is in charge of interpreting whether an intervention works? Or, do we believe something because it was published? Ending on a positive note, Clarke presented trials that were conducted on astronauts in the international space station. The drop-out rate was 0 because they had nowhere to go?
Help, I’m stuck.
After a brief tea and coffee break, the participants dispersed into three parallel sessions (N=25:12:7). Dr Clarke’s session was most popular. Traditionally, Mike uses the power and knowledge of a group of people at his workshops that might have some problems with their Cochrane reviews, but collectively have the knowledge to solve them. The list of participants’ questions that he wrote on the white board at the session start was left with only 2-3 questions unanswered. The group disciplines were mutually helpful – psychology, general practice, nursing or information science, experienced reviewers and Cochrane’s novices.
Two other sessions happened in parallel with Clarke’s workshop. Drs O’Rourke & O’Toole covered practicalities of generating clinical guidelines for cancer treatment in Ireland. Dr Matthews, HRB Cochrane Fellow and Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing & Human Sciences, Dublin City University, helped delegates with issues around starting Cochrane reviews.
Lunch was in the campus canteen – each delegate got a €10 voucher. The atmosphere in the canteen was conducive to contact making; we sat by long tables surrounded by students.
The afternoon program included 2 lectures by Susan Smith and Anne Matthews, and a conclusion by Dr Teresa Maguire – Head of the population science and health services research at the Health Research Board in Ireland. Dr Matthews corroborated on her experience of doing a review on morning sickness and being a Cochrane fellow – it’s for life, not just for the 2-year fellowship. Dr Smith is a Professor of general practice at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland who has done 9 Cochrane reviews. Her rich experiences from these reviews were especially useful for those interested in multimorbidity.