The course aims to provide the fundamentals of conducting systematic reviews appropriately and the statistical concepts of meta-analysis, with a focus on infectious diseases (ID), clinical microbiology (CM) and infection control (IC), going through the different steps of conducing a systematic review and performing a meta-analysis.
Also, this course will provide a base and an advantage to participants who will then want to the join the ESCMID guideline development as evidence review group or panel members.
The lectures will be interactive involving participants as part of the teaching process. Each frontal lecture will be followed by a practical (participants will need to bring their own laptop). The participants will work in small groups of 8-10 participants and receive topics on which they will form the research questions and design search strategies. They will receive primary studies (RCTs and observational studies) to practice data extraction and risk of bias assessment and level of certainty assessment, giving them methodological insight into randomized controlled trials, observational studies and diagnostic accuracy studies. They will receive extracted data from multiple studies and completed systematic reviews, to perform meta-analyses, analyse the forest plots and practice GRADing a systematic review. The small group work will be guided by faculty members rotating between the groups to lead the work and address questions.
Intended audience:
Clinicians in ID, CM or IC, including physicians, nurses, laboratory staff and veterinarians interested in research. The course is aimed primarily at researchers who do not have prior experience in systematic review methodology, working in the fields of ID, CM or IC since the topics addressed and research questions analysed in the course will come from these fields and clinical insight on the topics is needed for the derivation of the PICOs and interpretation of the studies and meta-analysis.
Objectives:
The learning objectives follow the steps of systematic review development. The first and most difficult step is to pose a relevant clinical or diagnostic question and translate it into a research question in the PICO, PECO or PIRD format, when targeting randomized controlled trials (RCTs), observational studies or diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies, respectively. The next, will be searching effectively, sensitively and specifically, for all the evidence addressing the study question; applying specifically eligibility criteria; extracting data from RCTs, observational and DTA studies; doing a meta-analysis, analysing the forest plot assessing heterogeneity and small studies’ effects; and finally appraising the quality of the evidence on the research question. A strong focus will be given to the risk of bias assessment and the GRADE methodology.
At the end of the course, they should understand strengths and limitations of systematic reviews and meta-analysis, be able to critically read and appraise systematic reviews and to conduct them. Also, we expect the participants to learn how to conduct systematic reviews of interventions and understand the concepts of diagnostic accuracy reviews.
Course coordinator:
Luigia Scudeller, Pavia, Italy
Organisers:
ESCMID Guidelines Subcommittee
Certification:
Course organisers will monitor attendance. Only participants attending live sessions will be able to receive the certification.
Course Venue:
Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, viale Golgi 19, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Accommodation:
Accommodation is NOT included in the fee.
Registration details:
The registration fee covers:
Registration
Registration is open until 01.05.2026.
Max 30 participants
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