Appraisal of the body of evidence was conducted along the lines suggested by the NHMRC in their guidance on clinical practice guideline development (NHMRC 2009). The five components considered essential by the NHMRC when judging the body of evidence are the:
evidence-base—which includes the number of studies sorted by their methodological quality and relevance to patients
consistency of the study results—whether the better quality studies had results of a similar magnitude and in the same direction i.e. homogenous or heterogeneous findings
potential clinical impact—appraisal of the precision, size and clinical importance or relevance of the primary outcomes used to determine the safety and effectiveness of the test
generalisability of the evidence to the target population
applicability of the evidence—integration of this evidence for conclusions about the net clinical benefit of the intervention in the context of Australian clinical practice.
A matrix for assessing the body of evidence for each research question, according to the components above, was used for this assessment (Table ).
Table Body of evidence matrix
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