Publication Voting Power (PVP): method of finding Evidence-Support

Abstract

Background: Extracting the best evidence that support a procedure is a difficult, time consuming task that needs expert statistical knowledge. A way to make weighting evidence more simple and straight for busy clinicians is needed.
Methods: The publications about the procedure under question are lined in an ascending order of strength of their evidence according to the research type. Each publication type is assigned a voting power that reflects its level of evidence. An arbitrary start of the voting power is put at 0.5 an increased by 0.5 successively. For each procedure the powers of the publications that support it are added together to make its final voting power.
Results: The procedure with the highest voting power will be the one supported with more evidence. In the example given, the procedure with the highest vote for portal hypertension is distal splenorenal shunt and for peptic ulcer disease is partial gastrectomy.
Conclusions: A simple method to get an evidence-based support to a procedure is described. It depends on putting the publications in a hierarchal order and assigning a power (Publication Voting Power) to each. As much publications as possible should be sought to make the choice more truthful.


Keywords: Evidence based medicine, surgical procedures

Sudan Journal of Medical Sciences Vol. 2 (4) 2007: pp. 241-245