Identification of additional trials in prospective trial registers for Cochrane systematic reviews

Ref ID 572
First Author W. A. van Enst
Journal PLOS ONE
Year Of Publishing 2012
URL https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042812
Keywords • Cochrane
• Grey literature
• General medical
• Searching
Problem(s) • Lack of supplementary searches beyond databases
• Insufficient literature searches
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country The Netherlands
Aim To assess how authors of Cochrane systematic reviews published between 2008-2010 made use of trial registers as an additional source for the identification of potentially eligible trials.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Searching trial registries was the 3rd most common strategy for identification of unpublished studies, occurring in 38.1% of Cochrane reviews. In in 55% of the searches in prospective registers, redundant work was performed by searching a portal and a register that is already incorporated by the portal.
Number of systematic reviews included 210
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 519
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description