Comparison of information sources used in Cochrane and non‐Cochrane systematic reviews: A case study in the field of anesthesiology and pain

Ref ID 751
First Author M.Biocic
Journal RESEARCH SYNTHESIS METHODS
Year Of Publishing 2019
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31393677/
Keywords • Cochrane
• Grey literature
• Pain
• Non-Cochrane reviews
• Searching
Problem(s) • Cochrane reviews more rigorous/higher quality than non-Cochrane reviews
• Insufficient literature searches
• Lack of supplementary searches beyond databases
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Croatia
Aim To assess the information sources and currency of searches from both Cochrane and non-Cochrane systematic reviews of RCTs indexed in PubMed and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews through Wiley from 2012 to 2016 in the field of anaesthesiology and pain.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Systematic reviews in the field of anaesthesiology and pain often neglected to search all possible information sources, particularly Non-Cochrane systematic reviews. Non-reporting of search date was more prevalent in non-Cochrane reviews. From 674 included reviews (300 Cochrane; 374 non-Cochrane) 303 (45%) reported that they searched clinical trial registries; 57 (8.5%) reported that they searched for unpublished data, 184 (27.3%) searched grey literature, 51 (7.6%) searched citations, and 546 (81%) searched references of included studies. A substantial amount of Cochrane reviews searched clinical trial registries (75.7%), compared with non-Cochrane (20.3%).
Number of systematic reviews included 674
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 1930
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description