Aims : To provide basic knowledge about evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and the Cochrane Collaboration will be described. The reliability of the data provided by meta-analyses will be discussed. The first steps in developing a Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis will be presented with the aid of high-quality training materials that were generated by the volunteers in the Cochrane Collaboration. We are grateful to the Cochrane Collaboration for allowing us to use these training materials.