Subjective judgements – no more, no less? A response to Malterud, Bjelland and Elvbakken

In 2016, three researchers published a report where they concluded that systematic reviews from my institution, the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services, are of little use for health policy decision-making. Based on their reading of the conclusion section in 14 reports, they argue that our systematic reviews are not useful due to their lack of clear and conclusive findings. I have reviewed the same documents and I beg to differ. Unfortunately, the description of their methodological approach is both sparse and difficult to grasp, making it very hard to understand how they arrived at their conclusions. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12961-018-0386-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.