For ethical, economic and scientific reasons, health-relevant degree theses must be made publicly accessible

An important problem, recognised more than quarter of a century ago In an article published in the James Lind Library, Gordon Guyatt and Andy Oxman – pioneers in the development of methods to support evidence-based medicine – explain why those of us working in the field of healthcare owe a methodological debt to the social sciences.1 American social scientists – including one who introduced the term ‘meta-analysis’2 – pioneered assessments of the effects of educational and social interventions using systematic reviews. They made clear that reviews should be conceptualised as research projects, and so needed to use scientifically defensible methods.3 One of the most important methodological contributions made by the social scientists in the 1970s was to p…
MedWorm: Dentistry