Conclusiveness of the Cochrane Reviews in Palliative and Supportive Care for Cancer

Zhang, Xia; Wu, Zonghui; Zhao, Haiqing; Li, Chenxi; Wu, Jigong; Dai, Guanghai

doi:10.1177/1049909115605058

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“… 5 Findings from previous analyses of Cochrane reviews in other medical specialties have varied, with some reporting a large proportion of conclusive reviews, 6 , 7 whereas others were more likely to be inconclusive. 8 , 9 The total number of studies and total number of included participants were associated with review conclusiveness. 6 – 9 It is important to note that these previous studies of the conclusiveness of Cochrane reviews did not evaluate reviewers’ judgements about the quality of evidence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High quality of evidence is uncommon in Cochrane systematic reviews in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Emergency Medicine

Conway

Soalheira

et al. 2017

European Journal of Anaesthesiology

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BACKGROUNDThe association between the quality of evidence in systematic reviews and authors’ conclusions regarding the effectiveness of interventions relevant to anaesthesia has not been examined.OBJECTIVEThe objectives of this study were: to determine the proportion of systematic reviews in which the authors made a conclusive statement about the effect of an intervention; to describe the quality of evidence derived from outcomes in reviews that used the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) working group system for grading the quality of evidence; and to identify review characteristics associated with conclusiveness.DESIGNCross-sectional analysis of Cochrane systematic reviews from the Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Emergency Review Group was undertaken.DATA SOURCESThe Cochrane webpage was used to identify reviews for inclusion (http://.ace.cochrane.org/).ELIGIBILITY CRITERIANew and updated versions of systematic reviews published up to 17 September 2015 were eligible. Protocols for systematic reviews were excluded.RESULTSA total of 159 reviews were included. GRADE was used in 103 reviews (65%). Of these, high-level evidence for the primary outcome was identified in 11 reviews (10%). The main reasons that quality of evidence for the primary outcome was downgraded were risk of bias (n = 44; 43%) and imprecision (n = 36; 35%). Authors of 47% (n = 75) of the total number of reviews made conclusive statements about the effects of interventions. Independent predictors of conclusiveness in the subgroup of reviews with GRADE assessments were quality of evidence for the primary outcome (odds ratio 2.03; 95% confidence interval: [1.18 to 3.52] and an increasing number of studies included in reviews (OR 1.05; 95% CI: [1.01 to 1.09]).CONCLUSIONIt was common for conclusive statements to be made about the effects of interventions despite evidence for the primary outcome being rated less than high quality. Improving methodological quality of trials would have the greatest impact on improving the quality of evidence.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High quality of evidence is uncommon in Cochrane systematic reviews in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Emergency Medicine

Conway

Soalheira

et al. 2017

European Journal of Anaesthesiology

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“…Also, it would be useful if systematic reviews would provide clear conclusions and recommendations. Although there are studies available that investigated the conclusiveness of Cochrane reviews from specific fields [ 17 , 18 ] to the best of our knowledge, there are no large-scale studies about the conclusiveness of Cochrane PLSs in the published literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study

Banić

Fidahic

Šuto

et al. 2022

BMC Med Res Methodol

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Background One of the most important formats to disseminate the evidence in health to different populations are Cochrane Plain Language Summaries (PLSs). PLSs should be written in a simplified language, easily understandable and providing clear message for the consumer. The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which PLSs are customized for lay persons, specifically by providing conclusive, comprehensible, and readable messages. Methods The study analyzed Cochrane PLSs of interventional studies (N = 4360) in the English language published from 1995 to 2019. We categorized the conclusiveness into one of the following categories: “positive”, “positive inconclusive”, “no evidence”, “no opinion”, “negative”, “negative inconclusive”, “unclear”, “equal”, “equal inconclusive”. Language characteristics were analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. The level of readability was measured by SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) index, indicating the number of years of education required to read the text. For each PLS, we also collected the following data: Cochrane Review Network, year of publication and number of authors. Results Most of the PLSs (80%) did not have a conclusive message. In 53% PLSs there was no concluding opinion about the studied intervention or the conclusion was unclear. The most frequent conclusiveness category was “no opinion” (30%), and its frequency increased over time. The conclusiveness categories were similarly dispersed across Cochrane Networks. PLSs were written in an objective style, with high levels of analytical tone and clout above neutral, but a lower relation to authenticity and tone. The median number of years of non-specific education needed to read the PLSs was 14.9 (IQR 13.8 to 16.1), indicating that the person needs almost 15 years of general education to read the content with ease. Conclusion Most of the Cochrane PLSs provided no concluding opinion or unclear conclusion regarding the effects of analyzed intervention. Analysis of readability indicated that they may be difficult to read for the lay population without medical education. Our results indicate that PLSs may not be so plain, and that the writing of Cochrane PLSs requires more effort. Tools used in this study could improve PLSs and make them better suited for lay audiences.

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“…This is inconsistent with previous analyses of CRs in different fields. There were 61 CRs (with 30 conclusive) 9 on palliative and supportive care and 283 CRs (with 16 conclusive) 2,3 on physiotherapy. Moreover, we showed that clinical nurses cannot necessarily turn CRs into definite answers in family nursing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conclusiveness of the Cochrane Reviews in Family Nursing: A Meta-research Study

Kajiwara,

Ito,

Tsubaki

et al. 2023

Asia Pac J Public Health

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This study established the clinical conclusiveness of Cochrane reviews (CRs) in family nursing. We extracted relevant characteristics of CRs to determine the methods of obtaining high-level evidence for family nursing. We performed a systematic search of all CRs on family nursing published in the Cochrane Library between January 2014 and April 2023. After screening 1212 titles and abstracts, we identified seven potentially relevant articles. Upon reviewing their full texts, we included six CRs with a total of 34 interventions. Of these, 22 (64.7%) interventions were conclusive and 12 (55%) were inconclusive. Thus, the number and percentage of conclusive CRs is lower in family nursing versus other fields.

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Conclusiveness of the Cochrane Reviews in Palliative and Supportive Care for Cancer

Cited by 11 publications

References 16 publications

High quality of evidence is uncommon in Cochrane systematic reviews in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Emergency Medicine

High quality of evidence is uncommon in Cochrane systematic reviews in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Emergency Medicine

Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study

Conclusiveness of the Cochrane Reviews in Family Nursing: A Meta-research Study

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