Why are the inclusion criteria for the literature specified before any literature searches are conducted?
These criteria ensure that a guideline does not address only articles that support a particular point of view. To assist in this, searches for literature are as comprehensive as practicable. Finally, these criteria are published in each guideline so that readers can assure themselves that they are objective. Again, this prevents bias, enhances transparency and promotes reproducibility. 6. I read an article used as evidence in one of the AAOS guidelines and the author’s conclusion was different than the conclusion found in the AAOS guideline. I found this very disconcerting. How can this happen? The research analysts who extract data from included studies never read an author’s conclusions. They read the methods and statistics sections of the articles and extract the data applicable to a given recommendation. AAOS uses all of the available statistical data from all of the studies included for a recommendation to do our own de novo analysis. The conclusions we reach will be based on the
