About the Authors

Mohamad Alshurafa

Contributed equally to this work with: Mohamad Alshurafa, Matthias Briel

Affiliation Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Matthias Briel

Contributed equally to this work with: Mohamad Alshurafa, Matthias Briel

brielm@uhbs.ch

Affiliations Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, Basel Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Elie A. Akl

Affiliations Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, Departments of Medicine and Family Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, United States of America

Ted Haines

Affiliation Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Paul Moayyedi

Affiliations Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Stephen J. Gentles

Affiliation Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Lorena Rios

Affiliation Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Chau Tran

Affiliation Chau Tran Consulting, Toronto, Canada

Neera Bhatnagar

Affiliation Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Francois Lamontagne

Affiliation Centre de Recherche Clinique Étienne-Le Bel, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada

Stephen D. Walter

Affiliation Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Gordon H. Guyatt

Affiliations Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Competing Interests

All authors declare that they received no support from any organisation for the submitted work; that they have no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; that they have no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MA MB EAA SDW TH FL GHG. Analyzed the data: MA MB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SDW PM GHG. Wrote the paper: MA MB GHG. Conducted the study: MA MB EAA TH NB SJG LR FL CT TH SDW GHG. Reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content: EAA TH NB SJG LR FL CT TH SDW PM.