Classification of all pharmacological interventions tested in trials relevant to people with schizophrenia: A study‐based analysis

Abstract

Background Systematic reviewing is a time‐consuming and resource‐intensive process. Information specialists are maintaining study‐based registers to facilitate efficient conduct of systematic reviews. Classification of study‐level meta‐data ‐such as interventions –can result in much more accurate searches, saving time in the early steps of systematic reviewing. Objective To classify all pharmacological interventions from all schizophrenia trials. Methods We used Cochrane Schizophrenia's Study‐based Register as the source of trials, Emtree and MeSH for synonyms, AdisInsight and http://CT.gov for research drugs and WHO ATC for marketed drugs. Results One third of tested interventions on patients with schizophrenia are pharmacological (816; belonging to 106 clinical classes) with antipsychotic drugs being the most researched (15.1%). Only 528 of these medications are listed in WHO ATC. Around one third of these drug interventions are seen only in research (236; from 21 pharmacological/biochemical classes). Within the pharmacological interventions, we identified 28 ‘qualifiers’ including dose, route and timing of drug delivery. Conclusion Identification and classification of pharmacological interventions from trials require use of many sources of information none of which are inclusive of all drugs. Limitations of each source are helpful to understand. Classification of non‐pharmacological interventions is now a priority for clinical and information scientists and professionals.

Efficacy of clozapine compared with other second-generation antipsychotic drugs in patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia: protocol for a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

“…We will search the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group’s Study-Based Register of Trials—a specialised register for clinical trials of interventions for schizophrenia25–28—without date, language, document type and publication status limitations. Following the methods from Cochrane,29 this register is compiled of monthly searches in multiple electronic databases of scientific articles (MEDLINE, Embase, Allied and Complementary Medicine, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PsycINFO, PubMed), clinical trial registries (US National Institute of Health Ongoing Trials Register (ClinicalTrials.gov), WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (www.who.int/ictrp)), databases for thesis and dissertations (ProQuest Dissertations and Theses A&I), Chinese databases (Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database and Wanfang, until the end of 2016) and hand searches of conference books and other grey literature.…”

“…We will search the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's Study-Based Register of Trials-a specialised register for clinical trials of interventions for schizophrenia [25][26][27][28] -without date, language, document type and publication status limitations. Following the methods from Cochrane, 29 this register is compiled of monthly searches in multiple electronic databases of scientific articles (MEDLINE, Embase, Allied and Complementary Medicine, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PsycINFO, PubMed), clinical trial registries (US National Institute of Health Ongoing Trials Register ( Clinical-Trials.…”

“…The strategy to search Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's register, developed by Farhad Shokraneh, [25][26][27][28] the former information specialist of the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group, Nottingham, UK, will be broad and include the names of all second-generation antipsychotics specified above in 'Interventions' and 'Comparators', as well as the names of several first-generation antipsychotics. The reason to include these first-generation antipsychotics in the search strategy is that we will use this broad search for different projects of our group, some of which address also first-generation antipsychotics.…”

In search of health information…

“…Acknowledging the time‐consuming and resource‐intensive nature of systematic reviews, Shokraneh and Adams (2023) describe a project to maintain a study‐based registry of pharmacological intervention trials. The registry includes study‐level metadata with the aim of saving time in the early stages of a systematic review by facilitating more accurate searching.…”

“…The registry includes study‐level metadata with the aim of saving time in the early stages of a systematic review by facilitating more accurate searching. Within the pharmacological interventions, Shokraneh and Adams (2023) identified 28 ‘qualifiers’ including dose, route and timing of drug delivery. A third of tested interventions were pharmacological (816; belonging to 106 clinical classes) with antipsychotic drugs being the most researched (15.1%).…”