The systematic review methodology literature refers to the importance of involving stakeholders, including service users and carers, in the research. However, compared with other aspects of the methodology, this aspect of conducting systematic reviews is under-developed and the practice of involvement appears highly variable. This article draws on the experience of working with service users an...

From the Editor—Emergency physicians must often make decisions about patient management without clear-cut data of sufficient quality to support clinical guidelines or evidence-based reviews. Topics in the Best Available Evidence section must be relevant to emergency physicians, are formally peer-reviewed, and must have a sufficient literature base to draw a reasonable conclusion, but not such a...

ion using a standardised form. It has helped generate an overview of how SPC has been applied to healthcare QI with both breadth and depth—similar to the benefits of thematic analysis reported by investigators reviewing young people’s views on health and health behaviour. In conclusion, this review indicates how SPC has been applied to healthcare QI with substantial benefits to diverse stakehol...

As a systematic review is a scientific exercise, and will influence health care decisions, it should have the same rigour that is expected of all research. The quality of a review, and so it’s worth, depends on the extent to which scientific review methods were used to minimise the risk of error and bias. It is the use of these explicit and rigorous methods that distinguish systematic reviews f...