Evaluation of the comprehensiveness, accuracy and currency of the Cochrane COVID‐19 Study Register for supporting rapid evidence synthesis production

Abstract

Introduction The Cochrane COVID‐19 Study Register (CCSR) is a public, continually updated database of COVID‐19 study references. The aim of this study‐based register is to support rapid and living evidence synthesis, including an evidence ecosystem of COVID‐19 research (CEOsys). In November and December 2020 we conducted an evaluation of the CCSR for CEOsys, measured its performance and identified areas for improvement. Methods For the evaluation we generated a purposive sample of 286 studies from 20 reviews to calculate the CCSR's comprehensiveness (sensitivity), accuracy (correctly classified and linked studies) and currency (time to publish and process references). Results Our sample showed that the CCSR had an overall comprehensiveness of 77.2%, with the highest coverage for interventional studies (94.4%). The study register had 100% coverage for trial registry records, 86.5% for journal articles and 52.4% for preprints. 98.3% of references were correctly classified with regard to study type, and 93.4% with regard to study aim. 89% of studies were correctly linked. 81.4% of references were published to the register in under 30 days, with 0.5 day (median) for trial registry records, 2 days for journal articles and 56 days for preprints. Conclusion The CCSR had high comprehensiveness, accurate study classifications and short publishing times for journal articles and trial registry records in the sample. We identified that coverage and publishing time for preprints needed improvement. Finally, the evaluation illustrated the value of a study‐based register for identifying additional study references for analysis in evidence synthesis.

Pragmatic and open science-based solution to a current problem in the reporting of living systematic reviews

“…Implementation should be feasible, at least with the freely available sources, such as PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov and WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, assuming appropriate application programming interfac s (APIs) are in place. In addition, specialised databases such as the Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register and Epistemonikos’ L·OVE platform25 26 have helped to reduce sources to be searched when identifying evidence during the pandemic.…”

Long-Term Health Symptoms and Sequelae Following SARS-CoV-2 Infection: An Evidence Map

“…The aim of this study-based register is to support rapid and living evidence synthesis. A recent evaluation has shown its high comprehensiveness, accurate study classifications, and short publication times [ 23 ]. Therefore, we used it as our primary source and complemented it with a second comprehensive database, which comprises several primary sources.…”

The currency and completeness of specialized databases of COVID-19 publications

“…Methods are based on proven methods for studying database completeness [1e5] and the methodology used in a recent Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register Sensitivity Evaluation [6]. We used the included studies from systematic reviews that met the eligibility criteria described below until we had gathered a sample of 500 references.…”