| Ref ID | 135 |
| First Author | R. Borah |
| Journal | BMJ OPEN |
| Year Of Publishing | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5337708/pdf/bmjopen-2016-012545.pdf |
| Keywords |
• Protocols • General medical |
| Problem(s) |
• Untimely (taking too long) or resource intensive |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | United States |
| Aim | To quantify the time and resources required to complete a systematic review by examining all registered, completed and published systematic reviews on PROSPERO up to 1st July 2014. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | From the 195 published systematic reviews, the mean project length (using the registered project start date on PROSPERO to the review’s publication date) was 67.3 weeks (SD=31.0; range 6–186 weeks). The authors provide the caveat that calculations for time were anchored by the registered date of the start of the project, but that it takes time to assemble the team, determine inclusion and exclusion criteria, conduct preliminary searches to refine the search syntax, and obtain funding (if the review is specifically funded) and therefore they predict that the time to publication from the very first activities of some reviews may be substantially longer than this estimate. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 195 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 3684 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |