Doxani Chrysoula, Theodoros Mprotsis 

Face to face lectures in the Laboratory of Biomathematics of the Department and the auditorium

MANDATORY PRESENCE: NO

Lectures in powerpoint (ppt) format

In each session, laboratory exercises are carried out on a computer

Use of Computer technology in communication with students (website, e-mail, etc.)

The general purpose of the course is to introduce students to the principles of Evidence-Based Medicine and the methodology of Meta-Analyses and to enable them to evaluate and interpret the results of published clinical studies with the ultimate goal of applying them in clinical practice.

The specific objectives of the course are specialized in the following intended learning outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the course, the student will be able to:

He/she will be able to use the acquired knowledge in order to:

• To understand the types of clinical trials
• To systematically search for clinical studies from information sources (e.g. Cochrane Library, etc.)
• To methodologically evaluate clinical studies as well as their meta-analyses
• To process and extract clinical trial data
• To meta-analyze the results of clinical studies, to present and interpret them
• To evaluate and meta-analyze the data of diagnostic studies
• To become familiar with the decision-making process based on statistical data

General Abilities

Research, analysis and synthesis of data and information, using the necessary technologies

Decision making

Autonomous work

Teamwork

Working in an international environment

Promoting free, creative and inductive thinking

• Categories of medical research and the hierarchy of evidence.
• Search for clinical studies and sources of clinical information (eg Cochrane Library, etc.).
• Critical methodological/statistical evaluation of clinical studies.
• Clinical Review Methodology 1: checking for published reviews, formulating the clinical question and developing the systematic review protocol and planning the search and conducting a literature search.
• Clinical Review Methodology 2. Selection of studies, data extraction and interpretation of results
• Meta-analysis 1: Synthesis of results of clinical studies when there is no heterogeneity between studies.
• Meta-analysis 2. Calculation and investigation of heterogeneity between studies.
• Meta-analysis 3: Synthesis of results of clinical studies when there is heterogeneity between studies.
• Meta-analysis 4: Checking for errors,
• Evaluation of the quality of the studies with the CONSORT, STROBE and PRISMA tools.
• Decision making with a statistical approach.
• Diagnostic studies 1: diagnostic indicators and assessment of study quality based on the STARD questionnaire.
• Diagnostic studies 2: systematic review and meta-analysis

Teaching notes are distributed:

Elias Zintzaras (2015) “Methodology of Meta-Analysis”

Postgraduate Programme (MSc) «Research Methodology in Biomedicine, Biostatistics and Clinical Bioinformatics at University of Thessaly» 

Elias Zintzaras and Chrysoula Doxani (2015) “Evidence-based Medicine and Translational Medicine”

Postgraduate Programme (MSc) «Research Methodology in Biomedicine, Biostatistics and Clinical Bioinformatics at University of Thessaly»

In addition, the following bibliography is indicated

Anne Whitehead, Meta-Analysis Of Controlled Clinical Trials, Wiley, 2013 

Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions version 6.2 The Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane, 2021