This annotated bibliography lists the literature which has been used to document the recommendations for selected items on the 2020 Rourke Baby Record (RBR). The references included in this review table are not exhaustive, and were selected by the authors for their relevance in supporting the 2020 RBR recommendations.
For our critical appraisal of the literature, prior to the 2014 RBR we used the former system of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (CTFPHC) to determine the quality of the evidence in each publication reviewed (Table 1). We continued to use this system for the 2014 RBR, but also began transitioning to the new GRADE system, now endorsed by the CTFPHC (Table 2). For the 2017 and 2020 RBR, only the GRADE system was used. Both former CTFPHC and GRADE systems are described below.
Based on this grading guide, we then used the quality of the evidence to determine the strength of each RBR item recommendation, using the longstanding and clinician-friendly scheme of Good, Fair, and Inconclusive evidence/Consensus.
We thank and congratulate Dr. Patricia Li (MD, MSc, FRCPC, FAAP), Associate Professor of Paediatrics McGill University, and her team - Stephani Arulthas (BSc, MPH), Jonathan Reeves-Latour (BA, MSc), and Emmanuela Tedone (BA, MEd, PhD candidate) - for their exemplary work on this huge task.
For the 2020 edition of the RBR, the McMaster Evidence Review and Synthesis Team (MERST) collaborated on the compilation and refinement of the literature searches, on the production and management of the literature data base, and on the 2020 edition of the Literature Review Table. Our thanks to Donna Fitzpatrick-Lewis (MSW), Ruth Lewis (BA) and Diana Sherifali (RN, PhD, CDE).
Drs. Leslie Rourke, Denis Leduc, James RourkeDownload the Literature Reviewed Table in PDF format.