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Review

Developing the Topic and Structuring Systematic Reviews of Medical Tests: Utility of PICOTS, Analytic Frameworks, Decision Trees, and Other Frameworks

David Samson  1 , Karen M Schoelles  2
Stephanie M Chang  1 , David B Matchar  2 , Gerald W Smetana  3 , Craig A Umscheid  4
, editors.
In: Methods Guide for Medical Test Reviews [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2012 Jun. Chapter 2.
AHRQ Methods for Effective Health Care.
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Review

Developing the Topic and Structuring Systematic Reviews of Medical Tests: Utility of PICOTS, Analytic Frameworks, Decision Trees, and Other Frameworks

David Samson et al.
Free Books & Documents

Excerpt

Topic development and structuring a systematic review of diagnostic tests are complementary processes. The goals of a medical test review are: to identify and synthesize evidence to evaluate the impacts of alternative testing strategies on health outcomes and to promote informed decisionmaking. A common challenge is that the request for a review may state the claim for the test ambiguously. Due to the indirect impact of medical tests on clinical outcomes, reviewers need to identify which intermediate outcomes link a medical test to improved clinical outcomes. In this paper, we propose the use of five principles to deal with challenges: the PICOTS typology (Patient population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcomes, Timing, Setting), analytic frameworks, simple decision trees, other organizing frameworks, and rules for when diagnostic accuracy is sufficient.

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