Consensus Development Conferences

	Research study cited in Consensus Development Conference.

Consensus Development Conferences are defined by the National Library of Medicine as presentations of summary statements representing the majority agreement of physicians, scientists, and other professionals convening for the purpose of reaching a consensus – often with findings and recommendations – on a subject of interest. The Consensus Development Conference, consisting of participants representing the scientific and lay viewpoints, is a significant means of evaluating current medical thought and reflects the latest advances in research for the respective field being addressed.

Groups and organizations issue Consensus Development Conferences as does the National Institutes for Health through its NIH Consensus Development Program. These conferences result in a report that includes references to research studies used to support or refute a consensus or finding based on the evidence.

An example of a non-NIH Consensus Development Conference is “A Panel Assessment of Glaucoma Management: Modification of Existing RAND-like Methodology for Consensus in Ophthalmology” Part I: Methodology and Design and Part II: Results and Interpretation, published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. The purpose of this Consensus Development Conference was to examine ways to improve existing methodology to reach appropriate consensus in the treatment of primary, open angle glaucoma.

Assessment

PubMed offers a search option to search for Consensus Development Conferences and Consensus Development Conferences issued by NIH. Another option is to check the websites of major organizations devoted to a specialized area of medicine for Consensus Development Conferences.

	Search using the name of the medical specialty related to the research project and “consensus development conference” as a search query.

PubMed

PubMed is a freely accessible online database of biomedical journal citations and abstracts created by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). Approximately 5,200 journals published in the United States and more than 80 other countries are indexed in PubMed. Follow directions for searching as noted.

From the PubMed home page, select the Advanced Search option. Scroll down to the “Limit by Topics, Languages, and Journal Groups” section. In the Type of Article box, check Consensus Development Conference or Consensus Development Conference, NIH, or both.

PubMed Advanced Search Menu page showing type of article filter

 

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Last updated: April 27, 2009