The evolution of a new publication type: Steps and challenges of producing overviews of reviews

Abstract

Overviews of reviews are only as good as the SRs and primary studies on which they are based; gaps or lack of currency in this evidence will weaken the overview of reviews. Future directions in this work must address questions of bias and loss of information. Methods for overviews of reviews targeted for specific groups, such as children, need more elaboration. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Overview of systematic reviews - a new type of study. Part II

“…To reduce the inconsistency of OoRs, it is important that authors follow the existing methodological recommendations. 3,5,61 When extracting data, attention was drawn to two factors:…”

“…Each OoR focuses on a problem or medical condition for which two or more SRs have addressed potential interventions and their outcomes. [1][2][3][4][5][6] One SR rarely addresses all potential interventions for a condition, and healthcare policymakers may have difficulty in finding, evaluating, comparing and summarizing the information from all the relevant SRs. 3,4 Thus, the main objective of OoRs is to serve as a friendly front end for the Cochrane Collaboration with regard to healthcare decision-making.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] Therefore, the primary audience for OoRs are healthcare decision-makers, such as healthcare professionals, policymakers and informed consumers who, through the Cochrane Library, seek evidence on treatments for various health conditions.…”

Overview of systematic reviews - a new type of study: part I: why and for whom?

“…[9][10][11] By definition, an OoRs is a study designed to integrate and produce a synthesis of information from existing SRs on a particular clinical condition, considering all the available interventions for treating or preventing this condition. [9][10][11] For didactic purposes, the present analysis will be published as a series of three articles. Part I, presented here, focuses on the growth of published papers presenting the best level of evidence for decision-making relating to healthcare, thereby justifying the creation of OoRs.…”

Systematic overview of economic evaluations of health-related rehabilitation

“…6 More recently, overviews of SRs have been increasingly used to summaries research evidence relevant to a wide range of health interventions. 7,8 To support the development of the World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines on Health-related Rehabilitation, 9 we systematically synthesized research evidence on cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit of health-related rehabilitation. A focus for the overview was to identify research evidence from less resourced settings defined as ''a geographical area with limited financial, human and infrastructural resources to provide rehabilitation (a common situation in low-and middle-income countries, but also in certain areas of high-income countries).''…”