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 In partnership with the British Medical Journal

Boots and the British Medical Journal

Boots is committed to helping you learn more about health so that you and your family and friends can enjoy a healthier life.
Key to this is having access to relevant, authoritative, up-to-date health information, but it’s not always easy to know where to look,
So, boots.com have partnered with the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd (BMJ Group), publishers of the British Medical Journal to provide you with independent, high quality medical information based on clinical evidence.

The BMJ Group is widely respected by the medical profession and patients, and our new ask boots service means you now have free access to a wealth of information and advice. You can read up on everyday health matters that concern you, a wide range of common conditions are covered, along with thousands of different treatments. What's more its written in a language that is easy to understand.

The health information contained on AskBoots is provided, where indicated, by BMJ Group and this content (including matters of accuracy) remains solely under its editorial responsibility. To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither Boots nor BMJ Group accept liability for the accuracy of AskBoots content.

BMJ Group Method

• Step 1: Selecting a topic
• Step 2: Asking the right questions
• Step 3: Finding the evidence
• Step 4: Making sense of the evidence
• Step 5: Presenting the answers

New medical studies are published every day. How do you sort through the mountain of research to find facts you can trust? And once you find a study, how do you understand its findings and judge how good it is?

It's hard to know how to make good decisions about your health. The method used by BMJ Group to produce the content for AskBoots is designed to make sure that you get the most accurate, up-to-date information on how well different treatments work, written in language that is clear and easy to understand.

BMJ Group look at medical research that is published in journals all over the world. It does this by using BMJ Clinical Evidence, a collection of the best research evidence for doctors. BMJ Clinical Evidence gives doctors and other health care workers a good, up-to-date summary of what's known and what isn't about treating a wide range of clinical conditions. It's published by the BMJ Publishing Group.

BMJ Clinical Evidence looks at all the evidence and decides how well treatments work, whether the research is good enough and how serious the side effects are. Sometimes no one knows for certain whether a treatment works because the research that's been done isn't good enough. Or it could be that not enough research has been done.

BMJ Group follow a strict process to develop each topic for AskBoots. Here are the key steps:

Step 1: Selecting a topic

For AskBoots, BMJ Group cover serious, long-lasting illnesses that affect many people in the UK. It also looks at more minor conditions that affect a lot of people, such as coughs and colds. We are guided by national health statistics, doctors and patient groups. The conditions BMJ Group look at have been included in BMJ Clinical Evidence.

Step 2: Asking the right questions

BMJ Group cover the treatment options for each condition and give background information to explain the condition itself. BMJ Group work with the BMJ Clinical Evidence team, an international team of doctors, and patient groups to find out what matters most to doctors and patients. They might ask questions such as: What does the research say about exercise helping people with heart failure? What are the side effects of treatments for childhood asthma?

Step 3: Finding the evidence

All our information is based on research evidence and high-quality medical papers. Here is how we gather this evidence:

Information about treatments

This information provided to AskBoots by BMJ Group is based on BMJ Clinical Evidence. To answer each question about a treatment, the BMJ Clinical Evidence medical information specialists do a thorough search for studies that measure how well treatments work. First the information specialists look for the best types of studies (called Glossary term: systematic reviews) and other good-quality studies called Glossary term: randomised controlled trials. If there are none of these studies, the information specialists look for other studies and say how much they can be relied on and what problems there are with the research.

Once the research has been collected, the information specialists weigh up the evidence and take out the studies that aren't good enough. They do this using a method developed by experts in how research is carried out.1 2

This thorough research helps us find out which treatments work best for a condition, and also why certain treatments work.

If you would like to read more about how BMJ Group search for and select studies, see the BMJ Clinical Evidence website (http://www.clinicalevidence.com).

Information about conditions

The information that BMJ Group provide to explain medical conditions is based on high-quality original medical papers and textbooks chosen by BMJ Group information specialists. On each page of the site, you will find the details of the sources of information BMJ Group have used.

Step 4: Making sense of the evidence

The research evidence for each treatment is studied and summarised by a doctor who is an important expert in a particular specialty. Each topic is then checked by at least three more doctors. Then, a leading expert provides advice on how doctors can use this research evidence. BMJ Group ask people with the condition to tell us what they think the important questions are about their condition and treatments.

A team of experienced medical writers makes sure this evidence can easily be understood by the general public and writes the extra information that explains each condition.

Deciding which treatments work

BMJ Group place treatments into categories according to how good the evidence is that they work. BMJ Group use slightly different language for AskBoots to describe the categories than you'll find in BMJ Clinical Evidence, but the treatments are grouped in the same way. Here is an explanation of what each category means:

Category	What it means
Treatments that work	There's clear evidence from randomised controlled trials that the treatment works. Also, the evidence shows that the chance of problems is small compared with the benefits.
Treatments that are likely to work	There is some evidence that the treatment works. But BMJ Group can't be as certain that the treatment works as they can for those listed under 'Treatments that work'.
Treatments that work, but whose harms may outweigh benefits	There's some good evidence that the treatment works. But there's also good evidence that it can have serious side effects. Doctors and patients need to weigh up the benefits and risks according to what each person needs and wants.
Treatments that need further study	BMJ Group don't know if the treatment is effective because there is either too little research to tell or the quality of the research is not good enough.
Treatments that are unlikely to work	There is evidence that the treatments probably don't work. But BMJ Group can't be as certain that the treatments don't work as they can for the ones in the group 'Treatments that are likely to be ineffective or harmful'.
Treatments that are likely to be ineffective or harmful	Clear evidence shows the treatments don't work or will be harmful.

Step 5: Presenting the answers

All the information provided by BMJ Group for AskBoots is edited by a team of editors and checked by BMJ Group doctors.

The BMJ Group information about drugs has been reviewed by a team of qualified pharmacists working in association with PharmacyHealthLink. PharmacyHealthLink is a leading national charity that works to improve the health of the public through the expertise of pharmacists and their staff.

This is medical research evidence you can use, put together by a team you can trust.

References

Glossary