The first two days will cover the review objective and defining the review question, as well as the protocol, literature searching, data extraction and the risk of bias assessment for reviews of prognosis studies. The third day addresses the more advanced topic of the principles of meta-analysis of prognosis studies. This will include computer exercises in which an actual meta-analysis is conducted. We will follow Cochrane guidance for preparing a systematic review of prognosis studies (see http://methods.cochrane.org/prognosis/).

At the end of the course, participants will understand the essentials and be able to:

1. Explain the rationale for performing a systematic review of prognosis studies
2. Formulate a focused review question addressing a prognostic problem
3. Systematically search the literature
4. Critically appraise the evidence from primary prognosis studies
5. Formulate the difficulties of meta-analysis of prognosis studies
6. Perform a meta-analysis in a review of prognostic factors
7. Perform a meta-analysis in a review of prognostic models