Table 4 Summary of findings table
Evidence summaries to increase policymakers’ use of systematic review evidence | |||
Patient or population: policymakers and health system managers Settings: Intervention: evidence summaries based on systematic review Comparison: any comparison | |||
Outcomes | Impact | No. of participants (studies) | Quality of the evidence (GRADE) |
Use of systematic review evidence in decision-making | Little to no difference in effect on evidence-informed decision-making when compared to access to a knowledge broker or online registry of research [25] Little to no difference in effect on self-reported likelihood of using data-driven versus story-driven policy briefs (with state-level or local-level data) [23] | 399 (2) | ⊕⊕⊕⊝ Moderatea |
Understanding, knowledge and/or beliefs | One study found little to no effect on understanding of information when provided in different summary of findings table formats [28] while the other found that those provided with a new version of the summary of findings table had consistently higher proportions of correct answers assessing understanding of key findings provided in the table [30] Little to no effect in understanding of information for a graded entry format compared to an summary of findings table or systematic review alone [27] Little to no effect on changing participants’ beliefs about the strength of the evidence for those who already had beliefs but increased the number of participants who had beliefs about the strength of the evidence [26, 29] | 676 (4) | ⊕⊕⊕⊝ Moderatea |
Perceived credibility of the summaries | Little to no difference in perceived credibility for different versions of the policy brief (data-driven versus story-driven, local- versus state-level data) [23] | 291 (1) | ⊕⊕⊕⊝ Moderatea |
Perceived usefulness and usability of systematic review summaries | The graded entry format was rated higher than the systematic review alone, and there was little to no difference between the ratings for the summary of findings table and the systematic review alone [27] Different summary of findings table formats had little to no effect in one study [28], but a new summary of findings format was found to be more accessible than the standard summary of findings in another [30] | 443 (3) | ⊕⊕⊕⊝ Moderatea |
Perceived understandability of the summaries | All formats of the policy brief were reported as easy to understand [23] Graded entry formats were easier to understand the summary of findings tables or systematic reviews alone [27] | 356 (2) | ⊕⊕⊕⊝ Moderatea |
Perceived desirability of the summaries | Alternate versions of the summary of findings were preferred [28, 30] | 378 (2) | ⊕⊕⊕⊕ High |