Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: In recent years the Chinese Cochrane Center has made great efforts to support Cochrane systematic review authors and promote production of Cochrane systematic reviews (CSRs) in China.
Objectives: To understand the current status of CSRs in China and to improve further CSR activities in China and to provide some experiences for promoting CSRs in developing countries.
Methods: We first searched The Cochrane Collaboration website (www.cochrane.org) using the search term 'China' and second checked the Chinese contact authors by contact address in The Cochrane Library 2005, Issue 4. We focused on the completed reviews and collected the publication status, authors' area distribution and the distribution of the review groups and specialties by Chinese contact authors.
Results: The number of CSRs gradually rises year by year from 1997 to 2005 since the first Chinese contact author published a CSR in 1997. Up to the end of 2005, there are 17 Chinese contact authors who have published 28 CSRs and 75 protocols published in The Cochrane Library and 108 titles registered with The Cochrane Collaboration.
The 17 Chinese contact authors come from university hospitals, research institutes distributed in five big cities in China, which include Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shijiazhuang in Hebei province. Among them, 13 authors are from Chengdu and have published 20 CSRs, 71.4% 0/28), of all CSRs. The 28 reviews are distributed across 15 Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs). Among them, 14 reviews relate to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and are distributed across nine CRGs.
Conclusions: China has already made some contribution to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews though it only represents 1.1% (28/2524). There still exists an imbalance in the development of CSRs produced in China between areas in China and Cochrane Review Groups.
Objectives: To understand the current status of CSRs in China and to improve further CSR activities in China and to provide some experiences for promoting CSRs in developing countries.
Methods: We first searched The Cochrane Collaboration website (www.cochrane.org) using the search term 'China' and second checked the Chinese contact authors by contact address in The Cochrane Library 2005, Issue 4. We focused on the completed reviews and collected the publication status, authors' area distribution and the distribution of the review groups and specialties by Chinese contact authors.
Results: The number of CSRs gradually rises year by year from 1997 to 2005 since the first Chinese contact author published a CSR in 1997. Up to the end of 2005, there are 17 Chinese contact authors who have published 28 CSRs and 75 protocols published in The Cochrane Library and 108 titles registered with The Cochrane Collaboration.
The 17 Chinese contact authors come from university hospitals, research institutes distributed in five big cities in China, which include Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shijiazhuang in Hebei province. Among them, 13 authors are from Chengdu and have published 20 CSRs, 71.4% 0/28), of all CSRs. The 28 reviews are distributed across 15 Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs). Among them, 14 reviews relate to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and are distributed across nine CRGs.
Conclusions: China has already made some contribution to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews though it only represents 1.1% (28/2524). There still exists an imbalance in the development of CSRs produced in China between areas in China and Cochrane Review Groups.