Footnotes

• Twitter @krmahtani, @carlheneghan, @JKAronson

• Contributors KRM wrote the first draft and all authors contributed to the development of subsequent versions.

• Funding All authors are supported by the BMJ Evidence Based Medicine journal in their roles as editors. KRM and CH are also supported by the National Institute for Health Research School for Primary Care Research Evidence Synthesis Working Group (project number 390).

• Competing interests KRM is the director of MSc EBHC (Systematic Reviews) at the University of Oxford. KRM and CH report grants from the NIHR including the NIHR School of Primary Care Research Evidence Synthesis Working Group (project number 390). KRM and JA are associate editors of the BMJ EBM journal. CH is the editor in chief of the BMJ EBM journal.

• Patient consent for publication Not required.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.