Quality standards in respiratory real-life effectiveness research: the REal Life EVidence AssessmeNt Tool (RELEVANT): report from the Respiratory Effectiveness Group—European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Task Force
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A Task Force was commissioned jointly by the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) and the Respiratory Effectiveness Group (REG) to develop a quality assessment tool for real-life observational research to identify high-quality real-life asthma studies that could be considered within future guideline development. The resulting REal Life EVidence AssessmeNt Tool (RELEVANT) was achieved through an extensive analysis of existing initiatives in this area. The first version was piloted among 9 raters across 6 articles; the revised, interim, version underwent extensive testing by 22 reviewers from the EAACI membership and REG collaborator group, leading to further revisions and tool finalisation. RELEVANT was validated through an analysis of real-life effectiveness studies identified via systematic review of Medline and Embase databases and relating to topics for which real-life studies may offer valuable evidence complementary to that from randomised controlled trials. The topics were selected through a vote among Task Force members and related to the influence of adherence, smoking, inhaler device and particle size on asthma treatment effectiveness. Although highlighting a general lack of high-quality real-life effectiveness observational research on these clinically important topics, the analysis provided insights into how identified observational studies might inform asthma guidelines developers and clinicians. Overall, RELEVANT appeared reliable and easy to use by expert reviewers. Using such quality appraisal tools is mandatory to assess whether specific observational real-life effectiveness studies can be used to inform guideline development and/or decision-making in clinical practice.
Date Issued
2019-03-27
Date Acceptance
2019-01-31
Citation
Clinical and Translational Allergy, 2019, 9 (1)
ISSN
2045-7022
Publisher
BioMed Central
Journal / Book Title
Clinical and Translational Allergy
Volume
9
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/
publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/
publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Allergy
Asthma
Comparative effectiveness
Quality standards
Observational studies
Database
RETROSPECTIVE DATABASE ANALYSIS
RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-TRIALS
COPD GUIDELINE DEVELOPMENT.
SECONDARY DATA SOURCES
INHALED CORTICOSTEROIDS
ASTHMA CONTROL
COORDINATING EFFORTS
COST-EFFECTIVENESS
PERSISTENT ASTHMA
ADHERENCE
Asthma
Comparative effectiveness
Database
Observational studies
Quality standards
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
20 (2019)