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Why we need systematic reviews and initiatives like the Cochrane Library
Published in Debra Evans, Making Sense of Evidence-based Practice for Nursing, 2023
Think of the many interventions you use, recommend, advise against, and wonder if they work or even do harm – the Cochrane Library is the electronic home of Cochrane systematic reviews looking at the effectiveness of health care interventions. This should be one of the first places you look to find high-level evidence for if a health care intervention works or not. Remember the hierarchy of evidence discussed in the first chapter, with SRs of RCTs at the top for “what works best”? SRs are essentially dynamic documents, as they should be regularly updated as new trial data becomes available. Remember hypotheses are rejected or not rejected and the “truth” might change in light of new findings.
Literature Searches:
Published in Lynne M. Bianchi, Research during Medical Residency, 2022
Lynne M. Bianchi, Ajaipal S. Kang, Justin Puller
Cochrane Library is a group of databases focused on evidence-based medicine and randomized control trials (RCTs). Databases in the Cochrane Library include the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), Cochrane Clinical Answers, and CENTRAL (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials). These databases are helpful for identifying systemic reviews of healthcare topics, summaries of up-to-date information on clinical care, and clinical trial descriptions.
Setting priorities in healthcare
Published in Stephen Gillam, Paul Cosford, Leadership and Management for Doctors in Training, 2021
If an intervention doesn’t work it shouldn’t be provided by a publicly funded health-care organisation. The Cochrane Library can be searched for systematic reviews and other repositories of evidence inform a decision. However, there are many areas of study where the quality and quantity of evidence is limited.
Management of late adverse effects after chemoradiation for anal cancer
Published in Acta Oncologica, 2021
Susanne Haas, Anette H. Mikkelsen, Camilla Kronborg, Birthe T. Oggesen, Pia Moeller Faaborg, Eva Serup-Hansen, Karen-Lise G. Spindler, Peter Christensen
We conducted a systematic search in the electronic databases Pubmed Central, the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and Embase using medical subject headings (MeSH) with the word anal cancer including relevant subheadings and with the following limits: species (human), languages (no limitations). The search included studies from the date of inception to June 2020 (August 2020 for CINAHL). Further, a search in the Cochrane Library was conducted. The terms used for the search were anal cancer as population and radiotherapy as the medical intervention. Late toxicity and/or survivorship was added as comparative intervention. We defined one general category for the description of diagnosing and monitoring of late adverse effects and five organ-specific complaint/symptom categories (bowel, urinary, psychosocial, pain, and sexual) and conducted individual searches within all these categories. All the synonyms and associated sub-terms were combined using the “OR” operator and were combined with each of the five organ-specific complaint/symptom categories by the “AND” operator. One reviewer (SH) independently screened the titles and the abstracts of each reference. Among 242 identified articles, 57 were retained for full-text review and screened by two reviewers to assess their quality and evidence level. Among these articles, 34 were included in the finalised guidelines. During the development of the guidelines, we added a sixth organ-specific complaint – radiation dermatitis, as the magnitude of this complaint type became clearer whilst reviewing the literature.
Systematic reviews should be at the heart of continuing medical education
Published in Journal of European CME, 2021
Angelika Eisele-Metzger, Claudia Bollig, Joerg J Meerpohl
Cochrane reviews are published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews which is a leading resource for systematic reviews in healthcare and a core component of the Cochrane Library [29]. The Cochrane Library (available at https://www.cochranelibrary.com) is a collection of databases including the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; containing reports of RCTs and quasi-RCTs) and Cochrane Clinical Answers (providing short and clinically focused summaries of results from Cochrane reviews). Furthermore, the Cochrane Library provides access to the Cochrane Special Collections, collections of Cochrane reviews on specific health-related topics. For example, a current Special Collection brings together several Cochrane reviews on optimising health when working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic [32].
A process for prioritising systematic reviews in tinnitus
Published in International Journal of Audiology, 2020
Magdalena Sereda, Don McFerran, Emma Axon, David M. Baguley, Deborah A. Hall, Iskra Potgieter, Rilana Cima, Samantha Cox, Derek J. Hoare
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses represent the highest level of evidence for the effectiveness of clinical interventions and hold a critical place in informing health policy and evidence-based practice (Greenwell et al. 2016; Morata, Hickson, and Wong 2017). One of the foremost organisations producing systematic reviews is Cochrane, which is a UK-based charity (not-for-profit organisation) that supervises a global independent network of healthcare practitioners, researchers, patient advocates and others. It represents more than 11,000 members and over 68,000 supporters from over 130 countries (https://www.cochrane.org/about-us). Cochrane authors conduct systematic reviews of health-care interventions and diagnostic tests which are published as Cochrane Reviews in the Cochrane Library. Previously, Cochrane authors self-selected topics for their reviews and submitted proposals to Cochrane for approval. This process has been updated and now, Cochrane groups are encouraged to work strategically to respond to the needs of funders and key stakeholders to produce reviews on topics of the highest priority to users. One approach to prioritising these reviews is to conduct a scoping exercise (https://ent.cochrane.org/our-evidence/prioritisation/scoping-projects). Cochrane Ear, Nose, & Throat Disorders (Cochrane ENT) group has developed suites of reviews with an “optimal, shared protocol with a well-designed and consistent set of outcome measures” (Cochrane ENT Group 2019).