Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: There are four leading Chinese databases Chinese Biomedical
Disk (CBM), Chinese Medical Current Contents, Chinese National
Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Chinese Academy of Traditional
Medicine Database) which are not routinely cross indexed in databases
routinely searched by the authors of Cochrane reviews or Cochrane
Review Groups. The joint proposal for establishing a database of RCT
reports in Chinese with English versions of the citations and abstract for
each record have been submitted to The Cochrane Collaboration.
Objectives: To supplement current records of CENTRAL with RCT reports
published in Chinese and to help Cochrane reviewers and review groups
incorporating these into systematic reviews. Methods: First, to identify
the RCTs within the databases listed above and incorporate these into a
single database which can be accessed internationally, with eventual
publication in CENTRAL. Second, the identified RCTs are linked to an
English language record providing the citation and PICO form. Three
working groups were organized (searching, translation and database
establishing) to develop and modify searching strategies; to identify the
claimed RCT; to translate the Chinese abstract into a PICO form; and to
incorporate the English PICO and citation into MeerKat. All people
involved were trained and worked with the input from the UK Cochrane
Centre. Results: First, pilot searching was tried on two journals for CBM
and CNKI databases to develop searching strategy. The results were
compared with that of handsearching to meet the criteria of specificity
and sensitivity. About 6000 citations and abstracts from CBM were
located, of which over 2000 were identified as potential RCTs and
translated. The results were transformed into the MeerKat database.
Conclusions: Challenges and problems: first, some studies published in
China that are reported as ‘randomized trials’ are not, in fact, truly
randomised, and it will take much time to evaluate them at the first glance
when we have hundreds of searching results; second, how to
develop a comprehensive searching strategy with specificity and sensitivity
is still being explored, e.g, duplication in two Chinese databases: CBM and
CNKI; third, translation problems with no full citation, or missing
information in the original abstracts, or multi-pronunciation for Chinese
authors, etc.
Disk (CBM), Chinese Medical Current Contents, Chinese National
Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Chinese Academy of Traditional
Medicine Database) which are not routinely cross indexed in databases
routinely searched by the authors of Cochrane reviews or Cochrane
Review Groups. The joint proposal for establishing a database of RCT
reports in Chinese with English versions of the citations and abstract for
each record have been submitted to The Cochrane Collaboration.
Objectives: To supplement current records of CENTRAL with RCT reports
published in Chinese and to help Cochrane reviewers and review groups
incorporating these into systematic reviews. Methods: First, to identify
the RCTs within the databases listed above and incorporate these into a
single database which can be accessed internationally, with eventual
publication in CENTRAL. Second, the identified RCTs are linked to an
English language record providing the citation and PICO form. Three
working groups were organized (searching, translation and database
establishing) to develop and modify searching strategies; to identify the
claimed RCT; to translate the Chinese abstract into a PICO form; and to
incorporate the English PICO and citation into MeerKat. All people
involved were trained and worked with the input from the UK Cochrane
Centre. Results: First, pilot searching was tried on two journals for CBM
and CNKI databases to develop searching strategy. The results were
compared with that of handsearching to meet the criteria of specificity
and sensitivity. About 6000 citations and abstracts from CBM were
located, of which over 2000 were identified as potential RCTs and
translated. The results were transformed into the MeerKat database.
Conclusions: Challenges and problems: first, some studies published in
China that are reported as ‘randomized trials’ are not, in fact, truly
randomised, and it will take much time to evaluate them at the first glance
when we have hundreds of searching results; second, how to
develop a comprehensive searching strategy with specificity and sensitivity
is still being explored, e.g, duplication in two Chinese databases: CBM and
CNKI; third, translation problems with no full citation, or missing
information in the original abstracts, or multi-pronunciation for Chinese
authors, etc.