This month marks the 100th edition of Cochrane Journal Club.
Aimed at trainees, researchers, and practitioners, each Journal Club covers a single Cochrane Review of special interest, selected from the new and updated reviews published in the Cochrane Library. They highlight practice-changing findings, controversial conclusions, new methodology, evidence-based methods, and reviews from diverse health and social care topics
The Journal Club resources provide everything you need to present a relevant and interesting paper at your next journal club, or simply to explore a review in more depth on your own.
Journal Club is edited by Dr. Bill Cayley, he has overseen 100 editions of Journal Club. To mark the 100th edition we wanted to thank Bill and let new Cochrane Members know about Journal Club and remind existing members of this popular resource.
In this interview with Bill we find out more about Journal Club.
Bill, tell us about yourself and why you enjoy editing Journal Club?
I have been practicing rural family medicine and teaching at a community-based family medicine residency for 20 years. Incorporating evidence into clinical practice has been an important principle for me ever since I first heard of evidence-based medicine and the Cochrane collaboration in the early 1990s. I think it is important for both trainees and clinicians to understand how to work with primary evidence-based literature and editing the journal club gives me a chance to share practical examples of critical appraisal for clinical practice with others.
Tell us about Journal Club
The Journal Club is for anyone interested in staying up to date with current systematic reviews and staying fresh with critical appraisal of evidence for clinical practice. Each monthly journal club features a recent Cochrane review, as well as a clinical vignette and discussion questions to help readers explore real-life application of the evidence covered in the review.
What topics has it covered? Have any been very popular? Which reviews do you pick and why?
Each week the Cochrane Content Dissemination team assesses all new and updated Cochrane Reviews and creates a selects a review for Journal Club based on topicality, clinical relevance and ability to inform evidence-based practice. plan for communicating their results, making recommendations for Reviews to feature in Journal Club
The December 2019 issue on the Cochrane Review, “Clients’ perceptions and experiences of targeted digital communication accessible via mobile devices for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health: a qualitative evidence synthesis” received the highest engagement in 2019 with 34.4% of people who received the email opening it.
How can someone sign up and what can they expect?
More details of how to sign up and access the most recent issue is here. Once signed up you will receive monthly Journal Club emails. Each focuses on a recently published Cochrane Review and comes with a Clinical Case to help you place the review in the context of a specific scenario and discussion questions to help you think about the review methods and findings in more detail; the monthly Cochrane Review featured is free to access for 30 days.
