Epistemonikos: a comprehensive database of systematic reviews for health decision-making

Rada, Gabriel; Pérez, Daniel; Araya-Quintanilla, Felipe; Ávila, Camila; Bravo-Soto, Gonzalo A; Bravo-Jeria, Rocío; Cánepa, Aldo; Capurro, Daniel; Castro-Gutiérrez, Victoria; Contreras, Víctor; Edwards, Javiera; Faúndez, Jorge; Garrido, Damián; Jiménez, Magdalena; Llovet, Valentina; Lobos, Diego; Madrid, Francisco; Morel-Marambio, Macarena; Mendoza, Antonia; Neumann, Ignacio; Ortiz-Muñoz, Luis E.; Peña, José; Perez, M. Acosta; Pesce, Franco; Rain, Carmen; Rivera, Solange; Sepúlveda, Javiera; Soto, Mauricio; Valverde, Felipe; Vásquez, Juan; Verdugo-Paiva, Francisca; Vergara, Camilo; Zavala, Cynthia; Zilleruelo-Ramos, Ricardo

doi:10.1186/s12874-020-01157-x

Cited by 54 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The Epistemonikos search was updated on 2 March 2021, with a publication date restricted to 2018-2021. Epistemonikos is now well established as a comprehensive database of reviews that regularly searches ten major databases including the Cochrane Library, PubMed and Embase 13 thus making the need to search these individual databases redundant. We also checked the Centre of Evidence Based Dermatology eczema map of systematic reviews, 14 and searched PROSPERO up to 23 March 2021 for any relevant ongoing systematic reviews using the terms 'eczema' and 'dermatitis'.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Safety of topical corticosteroids in atopic eczema: an umbrella review

et al. 2021

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ObjectiveAn umbrella review summarising all safety data from systematic reviews of topical corticosteroids (TCS) in adults and children with atopic eczema.MethodsEmbase, MEDLINE, PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the Centre of Evidence Based Dermatology map of eczema systematic reviews were searched until 7 November 2018 and Epistemonikos until 2 March 2021. Reviews were included if they assessed the safety of TCS in atopic eczema and searched >1 database using a reproducible search strategy. Review quality was assessed using version 2 of 'A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews' (AMSTAR 2 tool).Results38 systematic reviews included, 34 low/critically low quality. Treatment and follow-up were usually short (2–4 weeks).Key findingsTCS versus emollient/vehicle: No meta-analyses identified for skin-thinning. Two 2-week randomised controlled trials (RCTs) found no significant increased risk with very potent TCS (0/196 TCS vs 0/33 vehicle in children and 6/109 TCS vs 2/50 vehicle, age unknown). Biochemical adrenal suppression (cortisol) was 3.8% (95% CI 2.4% to 5.8%) in a meta-analysis of 11 uncontrolled observational studies (any potency TCS, 522 children). Effects reversed when treatment ceased.TCS versus topical calcineurin inhibitors: Meta-analysis showed higher relative risk of skin thinning with TCS (4.86, 95% CI 1.06 to 22.28, n=4128, four RCTs, including one 5-year RCT). Eight cases in 2068 participants, 7 using potent TCS. No evidence of growth suppression.Once daily versus more frequent TCS: No meta-analyses identified. No skin-thinning in one RCT (3 weeks potent TCS, n=94) or biochemical adrenal suppression in two RCTs (up to 2 weeks very potent/moderate TCS, n=129).TCS twice/week to prevent flares (‘weekend therapy’) versus vehicle: No meta-analyses identified. No evidence of skin thinning in five RCTs. One RCT found biochemical adrenal suppression (2/44 children, potent TCS).ConclusionsWe found no evidence of harm when TCS were used intermittently ‘as required’ to treat flares or ‘weekend therapy’ to prevent flares. However, long-term safety data were limited.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42018079409.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Safety of topical corticosteroids in atopic eczema: an umbrella review

et al. 2021

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“…Numerous initiatives have begun that use human effort, machine learning, or a combination, to identify relevant studies, categorize them according to intervention or population group, and in some cases extract and analyze data before a systematic review has been ordered, so that researchers will be positioned to rapidly produce high-quality evidence syntheses on a variety of topics as soon as policymakers request them. Some of the larger initiatives include the COVID-NMA project, focused on continuously updating analyses of randomized trials [ 29 ]; Epistemonikos’ LOVE database, which categorizes studies according to “type of question”, suitable for systematic reviews [ 30 ]; and the EPPI Centre’s living map, containing 11 heterogenous and mutually exclusive categories such as vaccine development, genetics, and mental health impacts [ 31 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Instruments to measure fear of COVID-19: a diagnostic systematic review

Muller

Himmels

Velde

2021

BMC Med Res Methodol

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Background The COVID-19 pandemic has become a source of fear across the world. Measuring the level or significance of fear in different populations may help identify populations and areas in need of public health and education campaigns. We were interested in diagnostic tests developed to assess or diagnose COVID-19-related fear or phobia. Methods We performed a systematic review of studies that examined instruments diagnosing or assessing fear or phobia of COVID-19 (PROSPERO registration: CRD42020197100). We utilized the Norwegian Institute of Public Health’s Live map of covid-19 evidence, a database of pre-screened and pre-categorized studies. The Live map of covid-19 evidence identified references published since 1 December 2019 in MEDLINE, Embase, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Following biweekly searches, two researchers independently categorized all studies according to topic (seven main topics, 52 subordinate topics), population (41 available groups), study design, and publication type. For this review, we assessed for eligibility all studies that had been categorized to the topic “Experiences and perceptions, consequences; social, political, economic aspects” as of 25 September 2020, in addition to hand-searching included studies’ reference lists. We meta-analyzed correlation coefficients of fear scores to the most common reference tests (self-reports of anxiety, depression, and stress), and reported additional concurrent validity to other reference tests such as specific phobias. We assessed study quality using the QUADAS-2 for the minority of studies that presented diagnostic accuracy statistics. Results We found 18 studies that validated fear instruments. Fifteen validated the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S). We found no studies that proposed a diagnosis of fear of COVID-19 or a threshold of significant/clinical versus non-significant/subclinical fear. Study quality was low, with the most common potential biases related to sampling strategy and un-blinded data analysis. The FSV-19S total score correlated strongly with severe phobia (r = 0.703, 95%CI 0.634–0.761) in one study, and moderately with anxiety in a meta-analysis. Conclusions The accuracy of the FSV-19S needs to be measured further using fear-related reference instruments, and future studies need to provide cut-off scores and normative values. Further evaluation of the remaining three instruments is required.

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“…• fulfilled the definition of systematic review used in the Epistemonikos Database [12]. • addressed a question directly relevant to COVID-19.…”

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

Covid-19 L·ove Repository Is Highly Comprehensive and Can Be Used as a Single Source for Covid-19 Studies

Verdugo-Paiva¹,

Vergara²,

Ávila³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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OBJECTIVE: COVID-19 Living OVerview of Evidence (COVID-19 L·OVE) is a public repository and classification platform for COVID-19 articles. The repository contains over 430,000 articles as of 20 September 2021 and intends to provide a one-stop shop for COVID-19 evidence. Considering that systematic reviews conduct high-quality searches, this study assesses the comprehensiveness and currency of the repository against the total number of studies in a representative sample of COVID-19 systematic reviews. METHODS: Our sample was generated from all the studies included in the systematic reviews of COVID-19 published during April 2021. We estimated the comprehensiveness of COVID-19 L·OVE repository by determining how many of the individual studies in the sample were included in the COVID-19 L·OVE repository. We estimated the currency as the percentage of studies that were available in the COVID-19 L·OVE repository at the time the systematic reviews conducted their own search. RESULTS: We identified 83 eligible systematic reviews that included 2132 studies. COVID-19 L·OVE had an overall comprehensiveness of 99.67% (2125/2132). The overall currency of the repository, that is, the proportion of articles that would have been obtained if the search of the reviews was conducted in COVID-19 L·OVE instead of searching the original sources, was 96.48% (2057/2132). Both the comprehensiveness and the currency were 100% for randomised trials (82/82). CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 L·OVE repository is highly comprehensive and current. Using this repository instead of traditional manual searches in multiple databases can save a great amount of work to people conducting systematic reviews and would improve the comprehensiveness and timeliness of evidence syntheses. This tool is particularly important for supporting living evidence synthesis processes.

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Epistemonikos: a comprehensive database of systematic reviews for health decision-making

Cited by 54 publications

References 23 publications

Safety of topical corticosteroids in atopic eczema: an umbrella review

Safety of topical corticosteroids in atopic eczema: an umbrella review

Instruments to measure fear of COVID-19: a diagnostic systematic review

Covid-19 L·ove Repository Is Highly Comprehensive and Can Be Used as a Single Source for Covid-19 Studies

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