Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of traditional Chinese medicine must search Chinese databases to reduce language bias

Ref ID 110
First Author X.-Y. Wu
Journal EVIDENCE-BASED COMPLEMENTARY & ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Year Of Publishing 2013
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24223063/
Keywords • Language
• Author
• Cochrane
• Complementary & Alternative
Problem(s) • Language restriction
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Hong Kong
Aim To assess a sample of Cochrane reviews of traditional Chinese medicine to assess whether Chinese databases were searched.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Of the 80 systematic reviews of traditional Chinese medicine trials randomly selected from the Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 43 (54%) searched Chinese databases and 37 (46%) did not. 15 (35%) of systematic reviews that searched Chinese databases and 12 (32%) of systematic reviews that did not search Chinese databases drew a conclusion that tended to support the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine. In addition, 41 of the 43 systematic reviews (95%) that searched Chinese databases had included Chinese co-authors, while only 4 (11%) of the 37 systematic reviews that did not search Chinese databases had Chinese co-authors.
Number of systematic reviews included 119
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 12666
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description