Concept
Keep evidence certainty attached to its outcome
One confident row does not certify the whole table.
Before you use it
- Use when
- A review's strongest rating is being applied to every claim about an intervention.
- Avoid when
- This card does not authorize assigning formal GRADE scores. Certainty alone also does not decide the best option for every person's preferences and circumstances.
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The idea
GRADE certainty concerns a specified outcome across a body of evidence. Benefits, harms and longer-term outcomes can have different ratings. Read the row and its reasons before borrowing the label.
An example
A review may be confident about a short-term symptom outcome while remaining uncertain about rare harms. The stronger rating does not fill the second gap.
Check your result
Can you name the outcome, comparison and reasons belonging to the quoted certainty rating?
Keep this limit in mind
- This card does not authorize assigning formal GRADE scores. Certainty alone also does not decide the best option for every person's preferences and circumstances.
My learning
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More from this collection
Check what a study can actually tell you
Check who could enter the sampleTreat missing responses as an unanswered questionEvidence and sources (1)
GRADE certainty is assessed for a body of evidence on a particular outcome.
Claim basis: guidance. Claim limit: A high-certainty result is not automatically a recommendation for every person. Source access: selected_html_passages; accessed on: 2026-09-17; inspected sections: ["14.1.1-14.1.2", "14.2.1", "14.2.2 indirectness and imprecision"]. Source note: GRADE ratings belong to bodies of evidence for specified outcomes; the corpus does not assign new GRADE ratings through these cards. Agent scope review, 2026-10-11: Cochrane Chapter 14 assesses certainty by outcome. The example distinguishes benefit and harm ratings; no formal GRADE rating or personal treatment recommendation is supplied.
Chapter 14: Completing Summary of findings tables and grading the certainty of the evidence · 14.2.1
Edition and review
Version 0.1.0 · Published
Agent review: Agent editorial and scoped evidence review · 2026-10-11