Background: The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way knowledge was transferred from face-to-face seminars to Live Webinars with the help of digital technology. The Cochrane Goal 3 of Informing Health and Care decisions was achievable with a click of a button, and thus we initiated Live webinars.
Objectives: To promote the findings of published Cochrane systematic review (SR) in dental practice to the health care providers. To engage with the healthcare providers to assist and support them in evidence-based health decision-making. To make valuable and trustworthy SR information useable for consumer care.
Methods: Live webinars have been conducted once per month since May 2022. The latest published SR was selected for the discussion. Four members of the team executed the webinar. Two were SR experts, and the other two were subject experts (author/clinician/academician). These webinars were publicized via a mailing list, Cochrane event site, and social media for the intended participation of dental postgraduate students, research scholars, academicians, and clinicians. The Webinar was conducted for 45-60 minutes. It included a presentation of the SR, expert comments on the research aspect, clinical implications, future recommendations, and a concluding remark on applying the review findings to the consumers. Feedback was obtained at the end of every session.
Results: Eight webinars have been completed with a participation registration range of 112 to 283. The webinar is informative, is well organized, and is a new initiative well executed agreed by 100% participants; only 2.29% have written a Cochrane SR and 15.19% have written non-Cochrane SR, 92% agree that these sessions have sensitized them about it, 100% strongly agree that the evidence helped them in making health care decisions, 73.47% have tried to use the valuable SR findings for their patients, and 100% would continue attending such webinars in the future.
Conclusions: Live webinars successfully promote, assist, and support healthcare providers to utilize valuable and trustworthy evidence base for consumer care. Patient, public, and/or healthcare consumer involvement: No direct involvement. However, the clinicians confirmed that the valuable SR information helped them make healthcare decisions, thus benefiting the consumers. The uncertainties in SR’s conclusion opened up new areas of consumer research.