Can a core outcome set improve the quality of systematic reviews?–a survey of the Co-ordinating Editors of Cochrane Review Groups

Ref ID 9
First Author J. J. Kirkham
Journal TRIALS
Year Of Publishing 2013
URL https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1745-6215-14-21
Keywords • General medical
• Missing data
• Cochrane
Problem(s) • Failure to define clinically meaningful outcomes
• Failure to address missing outcome data in analyses
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country United Kingdom
Aim To assess the amount of missing patient data for primary outcomes in Cochrane systematic reviews, and survey the Co-ordinating Editors of Cochrane Review Groups on issues related to the standardization of outcomes in their Cochrane Review Group's reviews.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings In one fifth (n=26 (18%)) of the published 283 reviews in the total sample, more than 50% of the patient data for the primary outcome was missing. Responses to the survey were received from 90% of Co-ordinating Editors. Thirty-six percent of Cochrane Review Group's have a centralized policy regarding which outcomes to include in the Summary of Findings table and 73% of Co-ordinating Editors thought that a Core Outcome Set for effectiveness trials should be used routinely for a Summary of Findings table.
Number of systematic reviews included 143
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 283
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description