| Ref ID | 363 |
| First Author | B. Nussbaumer-Streit |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(19)30657-2/fulltext |
| Keywords |
• General medical • Cochrane • Language |
| Problem(s) |
• Language restriction |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Meta-epidemiological analysis |
| First Author Country | Austria |
| Aim | To assess whether limiting the inclusion criteria solely to English-language publications affected the overall conclusions of 59 Cochrane evidence syntheses by re-calculating meta-analyses after non-English language studies were excluded. |
| Level of Investigation | Analytical |
| Summary of Findings | Overall, the exclusion of non-English publications led to the exclusion of 31 studies contributing to 40 outcomes. For 38 of the 40 outcomes, the exclusion of non-English studies did not markedly alter the size or direction of effect estimates or statistical significance. In two outcomes, the statistical significance changed, but authors would have still drawn the same conclusion, albeit with less certainty. Thus, the proportion of changed conclusions in our sample was 0.0% (95% CI 0.0 - 0.6), which indicated the noninferiority of the approach. However, the majority of excluded studies were small. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 59 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 60 |
| Treatment impacted | Yes |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | No |
| Interpretation impacted description |