From 2024 to 2027, the Cochrane Collaboration's strategy focuses on advancing evidence synthesis and dissemination to address global health challenges effectively. Key elements of the strategy include:

Strengthening Methodological Rigor: Emphasizing rigorous research synthesis methods to ensure the reliability and credibility of Cochrane reviews. This involves refining protocols, enhancing risk of bias assessment, and promoting transparent reporting standards.

Enhancing Collaboration and Diversity: Encouraging greater participation from diverse stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, patients, and healthcare professionals, to enrich the evidence base and promote inclusivity in decision-making processes.

Increasing Accessibility and Impact: Improving the accessibility of Cochrane evidence by expanding translation efforts, enhancing user-friendly dissemination platforms, and fostering partnerships with knowledge translation organizations to maximize the impact of Cochrane reviews on clinical practice and policy development.

Prioritizing Global Health Needs: Addressing priority health topics and emerging health threats through targeted research synthesis initiatives, including rapid reviews and living systematic reviews, to provide timely and relevant evidence to inform public health responses.

Promoting Equity and Transparency: Prioritizing equity considerations in evidence synthesis and dissemination efforts, including addressing disparities in health outcomes and ensuring transparency in conflicts of interest disclosure and decision-making processes.

By pursuing these strategic objectives, the Cochrane Collaboration aims to uphold its mission of producing high-quality, relevant, and accessible evidence to inform healthcare decision-making worldwide, ultimately contributing to improved health outcomes and health equity for all.

Cochrane is a globally renowned independent organization dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality, evidence-based healthcare information. Established in 1993, Cochrane collaborates with researchers, healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers to conduct systematic reviews of healthcare interventions. By synthesizing the best available evidence from research studies, Cochrane aims to inform healthcare decisions and improve patient outcomes.

Cochrane Croatia, as a part of this international network, focuses on activities within Croatia to promote evidence-based healthcare. Its primary functions include conducting systematic reviews tailored to the Croatian context, assessing the effectiveness and safety of various healthcare interventions. Cochrane Croatia also plays a crucial role in disseminating review findings through academic publications, conferences, and online platforms, ensuring that healthcare professionals, policymakers, and patients have access to reliable evidence.

Furthermore, Cochrane Croatia engages in capacity-building initiatives to support researchers, healthcare professionals, and students in conducting high-quality systematic reviews and implementing evidence-based practice. Through advocacy efforts and collaborations with stakeholders in the healthcare sector, Cochrane Croatia promotes the integration of research evidence into clinical practice and healthcare policy, thereby contributing to the advancement of evidence-based healthcare in Croatia.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are crucial in medical research for several reasons. Firstly, they provide the most robust evidence for evaluating the efficacy and safety of healthcare interventions. By randomly assigning participants to different treatment groups, RCTs minimize bias and confounding factors, ensuring that any observed differences in outcomes are more likely attributable to the intervention being studied.

Secondly, RCTs allow for causal inference, enabling researchers to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the intervention and its effects on health outcomes. This is essential for informing clinical decision-making and healthcare policy.

Moreover, RCTs uphold the ethical principle of beneficence by ensuring that participants receive interventions that have been rigorously evaluated for their effectiveness and safety.

Overall, RCTs serve as the gold standard for generating high-quality evidence in healthcare, playing a pivotal role in advancing medical knowledge and improving patient care.

A Cochrane systematic review is a comprehensive and rigorous synthesis of the available evidence on a specific healthcare intervention or topic. Conducted by following standardized methods outlined by the Cochrane Collaboration, these reviews aim to provide reliable, transparent, and unbiased summaries of the best available evidence.

To read and understand a Cochrane systematic review, it's essential to start with the review's structured format. Typically, Cochrane reviews include sections such as objectives, methods, search strategy, study selection criteria, results, and conclusions. Begin by reading the abstract to grasp the main findings and conclusions.

Next, carefully review the methods section to understand how the review was conducted, including details about the search strategy, study selection criteria, and assessment of risk of bias. Pay attention to the results section, which presents the synthesized evidence and findings of included studies.

Finally, consider the review's conclusions and implications for practice. Assess the certainty of the evidence and whether the findings are applicable to the clinical or research question at hand. It's also helpful to consult any supplementary materials or additional analyses provided by the authors to gain a comprehensive understanding of the review's findings and limitations.

Open, responsible, and reproducible research practices are essential for ensuring the integrity and transparency of scientific inquiry. Open research involves freely sharing data, methods, and findings to facilitate collaboration and scrutiny within the scientific community. Responsible research emphasizes ethical conduct, adherence to research standards, and consideration of societal implications. Reproducible research ensures that findings can be independently verified and validated, enhancing confidence in scientific conclusions. Together, these principles promote trust, accountability, and innovation in research, ultimately advancing knowledge and benefiting society. By embracing openness, responsibility, and reproducibility, researchers uphold the core values of integrity and reliability in scientific endeavor, fostering a culture of excellence and progress

Upon completion of this lecture, participants will understand the conceptual framework and methodological considerations involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of diagnostic studies. They will gain insight into the translational journey of diagnostic research from laboratory settings ('bench') to clinical application ('bedside'). Specifically, participants will be able to critically evaluate the key components of diagnostic study design, including study population selection, choice of diagnostic tests, reference standards, and statistical analysis methods. Additionally, they will appreciate the importance of rigorous methodology, evidence synthesis, and clinical validation in ensuring the accuracy, reliability, and clinical utility of diagnostic tests. Overall, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to the advancement of diagnostic research and its translation into clinical practice.

After attending this lecture, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of the methodological complexities and challenges inherent in conducting diagnostic test accuracy reviews. They will be able to identify and critically evaluate the key methodological considerations involved in designing, conducting, and interpreting diagnostic accuracy studies, including issues related to study design, bias assessment, reference standard selection, and statistical analysis methods. Participants will also gain insight into strategies for addressing common challenges and limitations encountered in diagnostic test accuracy reviews, such as heterogeneity, spectrum bias, and reporting biases. By the end of the lecture, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate methodological challenges effectively and produce high-quality, clinically relevant evidence to inform diagnostic decision-making

Upon completion of this lecture, participants will grasp the fundamental concepts of random error in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic reviews. They will understand the importance of sample size estimation in minimizing the risk of random error and ensuring the reliability of study findings. Participants will gain proficiency in techniques for estimating sample sizes based on desired levels of statistical power, effect size, and significance thresholds. Additionally, they will learn how to interpret and apply sample size calculations in the design and planning of RCTs and systematic reviews. By the end of the lecture, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct methodologically robust studies with sufficient statistical power to detect meaningful effects and contribute to the advancement of evidence-based practice.