| Ref ID | 346 |
| First Author | I. Propadalo |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(18)30625-5/fulltext |
| Keywords |
• General medical • Risk of bias • Cochrane |
| Problem(s) |
• Flawed risk of bias undertaken • Weaknesses identified in some Cochrane reviews |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Croatia |
| Aim | To assess whether the risk of bias judgments for allocation concealment in Cochrane systematic reviews, published from July 2015 to June 2016 in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, were in line with recommendations from the Cochrane Handbook. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | One-third (29%) of risk of bias judgments about allocation concealment in Cochrane reviews were discrepant from the Cochrane Handbook recommendations. Most discrepancies were made for trials where risk of bias was judged as low (92%). Cochrane authors used 66 categories of comments describing envelopes as a method of allocation concealment. In 66 envelope-related categories, describing risk of bias assessments from 15% of the analysed RCTs, most of the judgments were rated as low risk of bias, although only one of those categories is associated with low risk of bias according to the Cochrane Handbook. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 721 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 721 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |