The Cochrane Library
http://www.cochranelibrary.com/ Access from http://bibliotecadigitale.cab.unipd.it/
Lisa Dainese – Biblioteca Medica Pinali, Università degli Studi di Padova 28 May 2018
FOUNDER OF THE COCHRANE COLLABORATION The Cochrane Collaboration, a not-for-profit organization is named in honour of Archie Cochrane, a British medical researcher who contributed greatly to the development of epidemiology as a science
In 1979: “It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organised a critical summary, by specialty or subspecialty, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomised controlled trials”
He is best know for his influential book, Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services, published in 1972. About the Cochrane Library • Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) The Cochrane Library is a collection of six databases • Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials monthly) that contain different types (CENTRAL) ( of high-quality, • Cochrane Methodology Register (CMR) (up to 2012, stopped) independent evidence to • Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) (quarterly up inform healthcare decision- to April 2015, stopped) making, and a seventh • Health Technology Assessment Database (HTA) (quarterly) database that provides • NHS Economic Evaluation Database (EED) (quarterly up to April information about 2015, stopped) Cochrane groups • About The Cochrane Collaboration (monthly) Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews • The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) is the leading resource for systematic reviews in health care. • The CDSR includes all Cochrane Reviews (and protocols) prepared by Cochrane Review Groups. Each Cochrane Review is a peer-reviewed systematic review that has been prepared and supervised by a Cochrane Review Group (editorial team), according to the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions or Cochrane Handbook for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews
• To explore Cochrane Reviews you can use the advanced search or you can browse by topic or by Cochrane Review Group
• Editorials and occasional Supplements are also included:
• Editorials aim to stimulate discussion and ideas around the development of evidence synthesis to promote good decision- making in clinical care and health policy
• Abstracts of Cochrane colloquia and other events (from 2009 to present) are published as supplements to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR). From 2010 to 2016, Cochrane Methods, the official annual publication for methodological issues within Cochrane, was also published as a CDSR supplement.
• For more about methods work in Cochrane, see methods.cochrane.org
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
• CENTRAL contains a register of studies where Cochrane reviewers and researchers can identify studies in different medical disciplines which may be relevant for inclusion in Cochrane reviews
• The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) is the world’s largest database of of randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials. They are mostly taken from bibliographic databases (mainly MEDLINE and Embase), but records are also derived from other published and unpublished sources.
• Each Cochrane Review Group maintains a collection of reports of controlled trials relevant to its own area of interest, these are called Specialised Registers
• As the overriding aim of CENTRAL is to compile a comprehensive database of reports of randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials, records are included irrespective of language or date of publication. • In addition to bibliographic details (author, title, source, year, etc) CENTRAL records often include an abstract (a summary of the article). They do not contain the full text of the article.
Cochrane Methodology Register (CMR) Updated until July 2012
• Bibliography of publications that report on methods used in the conduct of controlled trials • It includes journal articles, books, and conference proceedings, and the content is sourced from MEDLINE and hand searches • CMR contains studies of methods used in reviews and more general methodological studies that could be relevant to anyone preparing systematic reviews • CMR records contain the title of the article, information on where it was published (bibliographic details), and, in some cases, a summary of the article. They do not contain the full text of the article. • Produced by the Cochrane UK, until 31st May 2012, the future of the CMR is now currently under review and is not receiving updates
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects
• Produced by the University of York, Centre for Reviews & Dissemination
• The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) is the only database with abstracts of systematic reviews that have been quality-assessed making DARE a key resource for busy decision makers in healthcare policy and practice.
• It contains details of systematic reviews that evaluate the effects of healthcare interventions, delivery and organisation of health services. DARE also contains reviews of the wider determinants of health such as housing, transport, and social care where these impact directly on health, or have the potential to impact on health.
• DARE complements the CDSR by identifying and including systematic reviews that have not been carried out by The Cochrane Collaboration
• The future of the CMR is under review: bibliographic records were published on until 31st March 2015. [DARE and NHS EED archives secure on CRD website until at least 2021: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/CRDWeb/HomePage.asp]
NHS Economic Evaluation Database (EED)
• The NHS Economic Evaluation Database (EED) contains economic evaluations of healthcare interventions in which a comparison of two or more interventions or care alternatives is undertaken and in which both the costs and outcomes of the alternatives are examined. This includes cost-benefit analyses, cost-utility analyses, and cost-effectiveness analyses.
• NHS EED was produced by the NIHR Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) at the University of York, UK.
• NIHR funding to produce NHS EED ceased at the end of March 2015. However, the database can still be accessed via the Cochrane Library.
Health Technology Assessment Database (HTA)
• The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Database brings together details of completed and ongoing health technology assessments from around the world. • Records for published projects contain full bibliographic details and contact information for the organisation publishing the report. • Links to reports, project pages, and/or organisation websites are provided wherever possible so that database users can access full details directly. • The HTA database also contains brief details of ongoing HTA projects which are updated when projects complete. This enables funders and researchers to identify work already in progress and may help reduce unintended duplication of effort. • Unlike the other CRD databases, DARE and NHS EED, the published records are not critically assessed. However, where a review or economic evaluation listed in the HTA database has met the inclusion criteria for DARE or NHS EED and a critical abstract has been written, links to that abstract are included in the HTA database record.
Current record count for the Cochrane Library
Database Total Records
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews A breakdown of CDSR content is available here 10,268
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials 1,275,166
Cochrane Methodology Register 15,764
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effect 36,795
Health Technology Assessment Database 16,559
NHS Economic Evaluation Database 15,015
About The Cochrane Collaboration 78
Cochrane Editorials 119 Update June 2018 Five types of Cochrane Review:
1. Intervention reviews: assess the benefits and harms of interventions used in healthcare and health policy 2. Diagnostic test accuracy reviews: assess how well a diagnostic test performs in diagnosing and detecting a particular disease 3. Methodology reviews: address issues relevant to how systematic reviews and clinical trials are conducted and reported 4. Qualitative reviews: synthesize qualitative evidence to address questions on aspects other than effectiveness 5. Prognosis reviews: address the probable course or future outcome(s) of people with a health problem Status and review type buttons
The first five tags indicate the types of systematic reviews
The remaining tags indicate the status of the systematic review Support for logical (boolean) operators
Why register Although it is not mandatory, it is necessary to register and log in to save searches, search strategies and set alerts
Mesh search 10 things you may not know about Cochrane
1. The CL does not only consist of SR of the effectiveness of the interventions. There are diagnostic tests accuracy reviews, overviews of reviews, prognosis review 2. CR are not based only on trial results published in journals, but also on unpublished studies, such as the ones in ClinicalTrials.gov or from Clinical Study Reports: reports submitted by the pharmaceutical industry to regulatory agencies to support licencing applications (very detailed reports including the raw data submitted) 3. Cochrane database of systematic reviews has an Impact Factor (CDSR as an electronic journal part of the Cochrane Library – suite of databases)
4. Cochrane library is working towards open access to all new and updated reviews by 2020 5. There is an ipad edition of the Cochrane library 6. There are podcasts versions for a number of Cochrane reviews 7. Cochrane does have a ‘point-of-care’ tool – Cochrane clinical answers [needs specific subscription] 8. You can follow Cochrane Library on social media and use various RSS feeds 9. Cochrane produces Journal Club packages based on Cochrane reviews*
*For a greater understanding of an important review, each issue of Cochrane Journal Club focuses on a recent Cochrane Review, providing relevant background information and related resources.
Readers can listen to a podcast in which the lead author explains the key points of the review, read discussion questions to help think about the review methods and findings in more detail, or ask the authors a question.
Reviews of special interest are chosen such as reviews that will change practice or employs a new statistical method
10. There are new rules (standards) for the conduct and reporting of Cochrane reviews (in addition to Cochrane handbook) For many years the Cochrane Handbook was the support, especially Chapter 6 about searching for studies (currently under revision) available at http://handbook.cochrane.org/ New tools: MECIS: Methodological Expectations in Cochrane Interventions Reviews http://methods.cochrane.org/resources They are proper standards at different levels for the conduct and reporting of reviews, from mandatory standards to good practice elements http://training.cochrane.org/
NEW! Cochrane Library: new website preview Welcome to a preview of the new Cochrane Library website. This preview gives an early view of some of the new enhancements ahead of the future launch. Please be aware that the site is still in development and a data load is underway (22-25 May) which will impact on search results. This is not the final version of the new Cochrane Library website.