Intervention quality is not routinely assessed in Cochrane systematic reviews of radiation therapy interventions

Ref ID 479
First Author M. R. Abdul Rahim
Journal JOURNAL OF MEDICAL IMAGING & RADIATION ONCOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2017
URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/1754-9485.12589?download=true
Keywords • Oncology
• Cochrane
• Low reporting quality
Problem(s) • Weaknesses identified in some Cochrane reviews
• Intervention not described / defined
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country New Zealand
Aim To assess whether the intervention characteristics of radiation therapy intervention were evaluated in Cochrane systematic reviews published up to 2014. Particular characteristics of interest were quality assurance and quality control.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Of the 67 Cochrane systematic reviews studied, only two mentioned quality assurance or quality control. The authors conclude that 97% of reviews failed to consider the quality assurance of the interventions in the included studies.
Number of systematic reviews included 67
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 416
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description