Bhubaneswar, July 28: Seventy participants attended a day-long Faculty Development Program (FDP) on ‘Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’ conducted at the SUM Nursing College, faculty of nursing of SOA Deemed to be University here, on Wednesday.

The objective of the program, which included two scientific sessions, was to strengthen the research competencies of faculty members on systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

In the first scientific session, the participants were introduced to the fundamentals of systematic review with emphasis on their importance in evidence-based research, differences from traditional literature reviews, formulation of research questions using PICO framework, protocol development, literature search strategies and study selection based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Dr. Ketan Kumar of the Department of Pediatrics at AIIMS Bhubaneswar, who conducted the session also spoke about PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines and the overall workflow of conducting a systematic review and literature search strategy.

In the second scientific session, conducted by Dr. Rashmi Ranjan Das, Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at AIIMS Bhubaneswar, the discussions pertained to reporting standards, interpretation of meta-analytic results, publication strategies and common methodological challenges encountered while conducting systemtic reviews.

SOA’s Vice-Chancellor Prof. Pradipta Kumar Nanda, who inaugurated the program, emphasised the significance of evidence-based research and encouraged faculty members and researchers to adopt systematic review and meta-analysis methodologies to generate high quality scientific evidence.

The program concluded with an interactive discussion during which the participants posed their queries related to software applications, statistical interpretation  and publication of systematic reviews.