Resource tiered reviews – A provisional reporting checklist

Resource tiered reviews -A provisional reporting checklistErrors in research are perniciously unavoidable.These errors, both knowingly and unknowingly, span from initial fundamental data collection mishaps all the way through to reporting blunders.Avoiding them is an illusion best admitted early on in your research career.Attempting to work harder to avoid these ''minor'' slip-ups in today's ever increasingly critical scientific environment is neither effective, nor efficient.Atul Gawande (author of 'The checklist manifesto') explains that we are up against two things when either performing a high volume of simple tasks or performing a variety of complex tasks. 1 Firstly, human memory and attention is fallible; and secondly we tend to skip tasks even when we remember them simply because we think that the specific step does not matter.A basic checklist helps us to perform complex tasks not only correctly, but also consistently and safely.A large number of checklists are currently available to help report and/or critically appraise nearly every type of research design.To name only a few, the AGREE II tool for clinical guidelines; 2 and AMSTAR, PRISMA and CASP for systematic reviews.3-5 It is not so much the specific checklist used, but rather the use of a validated checklist that ensures that reporting happens consistently and includes all relevant information.Or so we thought, until we started to commission systematic reviews for AFJEM.It soon became clear that simply reporting on current international best practice was not always appropriate in African acute care settings; in fact it was often quite the opposite.Various resource restrictions ranging from cost-restrictions, to non-availability of essential drugs or equipment, to lack of local expertise exist in the African acute care setting.To illustrate, say a middle aged patient presents with gripping chest pain to a scantilyresourced emergency centre.Besides history and examination, none of the diagnostic tests required to work up a suspected Peer review under responsibility of African Federation for Emergency Medicine. Production and hosting by Elsevier

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

1. 2.

   Development of AMSTAR: a measurement tool to assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews · 2007

2. 9.

   Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement · 2009

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