Introduction to Conducting Qualitative Evidence Synthesis
Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences at University of Copenhagen
This is a generic course. This means that the course is reserved for PhD students at the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences at UCPH.
Anyone can apply for the course, but if you are not a PhD student at the Graduate School, you will be placed on the waiting list until enrollment deadline. After the enrolment deadline, available seats will be allocated to the waiting list.
The course is free of charge for PhD students at Danish universities (except Copenhagen Business School), and for PhD students at NorDoc member faculties. All other participants must pay the course fee
Learning objectives
A student who has met the objectives of the course will be able to:
1. Understand the different steps in conducting a qualitative evidence synthesis
2. Choose between different approaches to synthesizing qualitative evidence and discuss the usefulness of each approach in relation to the review question
3. Critically appraise included original studies uding the CAMELOT (CochrAne qualitative Methodological LimitatiOns Tool)
4. Understand the application of GRADE-CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research) and CONQual (Confidence in Qualitative Synthesis) criteria
5. Critically appraise qualitative evidence syntheses
Content
The course will follow the steps of conducting a systematic review of qualitative evidence, including the formulation of a review question(s), literature searching, quality assessment of studies for inclusion using CAMELOT, synthesising data and writing up and presenting the product of the synthesis. Participants will be provided with practical examples of key stages in the review process.
Participants will be presented with different approaches to synthesizing qualitative data (meta-aggregation, thematic synthesis, meta-ethnography) and hands-on exercises in applying the GRADE-CERqual/CONQual approaches to assess the degree of confidence to place in review findings.
Participants
PhD students and other postgraduates planning to conduct qualitative evidence synthesis.
Relevance to graduate programmes
The course is relevant to PhD students from the following graduate programmes at the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences, UCPH:
Public Health and Epidemiology
All graduate programmes
Language
English if non-Danish participants attend.
Form
The course will include lectures, discussion in plenary and groups, and exercises. In the exercises, students will have the opportunity to synthesize data using different strategies and work with CAMELOT, and apply the GRADE-CERqual/CONQual criteria through practical exercises.
Course director
Thordis Thomsen, clinical professor, Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences, thordis.thomsen@regionh.dk
Susanne Vahr Lauridsen, associate professor, Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences,
Teachers
Merete Bjerrum, Professor, Centre for Clinical Guidelines, University of Aalborg, Denmark
Susanne Vahr Lauridsen, Associate professor, Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences
Thordis Thomsen, Clinical professor, Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences
Kate Flemming, Professor, Head of Department, Department of Health Sciences, University of York, UK
Heather Munthe-Kaas, Researcher at Centre for Epidemic Interventions Research, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, University of Oslo, Norway
Dates
9-12 februar 2027
Course location
Mærsk tower, room to be confirmed
Registration
Please register before 7.th of January 2027
Seats to PhD students from other Danish universities will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and according to the applicable rules.
Applications from other participants will be considered after the last day of enrolment.