Is the role of the researcher clearly described? Are the research design and methods rigorous? Was the data collection rigorous? Was the data analysis rigorous? Are the data rich? Are the findings relevant to the aims of the study? Chronic Heart Failure Methods NICE 2018. All rights reserved. Subject to Notice of rights. ISBN: 978-1-4731-3093-7 Are the findings and conclusions convincing? The overall assessment of the methodological limitations of the evidence was based on the primary studies contributing to the review finding. The relative contribution of each study to the overall review finding and of the type of methodological limitation(s) were taken into account when giving an overall rating. Coherence is the extent to which the reviewer is able to identify a clear pattern across the studies included in the review, and if there is variation present (contrasting or disconfirming data) whether this variation is explained by the contributing study authors. If a review finding in 1 study does not support the main finding and there is no plausible explanation for this variation, then the confidence that the main finding reasonably reflects the phenomenon of interest is decreased. Each review finding was given a rating of minor, moderate or major concerns about coherence. Relevance is the extent to which the body of evidence from the included studies is applicable to the context (study population, phenomenon of interest, setting) specified in the protocol. As such, relevance is dependent on the individual review and discussed with the guideline committee. Relevance is categorised in 3 ways: partial relevance, indirect relevance and no concerns about relevance. The judgement of adequacy is based on the confidence of the finding being supported by sufficient data. 