Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Reviews of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) are increasingly gaining importance within Cochrane, and Cochrane tools, such as RevMan, are constantly being updated to serve the requirements of conducting such types of review. However, not all tasks can currently be solved using standard Cochrane tools.
Objectives: The authors of the DTA-review 'Airway physical examination tests for detection of difficult airway management in apparently normal patients' of the Cochrane Anaesthesia, Critical and Emergency Care Group (ACE) strived for a tool to facilitate data-collection for their team scattered across four countries and three continents. The need for such a tool was aggravated by the fact, that this project represents a 'multidimensional' review with multiple target conditions, a multitude of tests, serving both as standard- and index-tests, and that each individual study usually includes a large number of comparisons.
Methods: Based on the QUADAS 2 database by Whiting et al, an MS Access-database to be hosted by a filehosting-service was developed to collect data on measures of DTA on multiple levels (multiple target conditions, index tests and comparisons by each study) and quality assessment, as well as to generate paper-based data extraction- and reporting-forms. (See Fig. 1)
Results: We present the feasibility of a customized interactive database using the example of an ongoing Cochrane DTA review.
Conclusions: Based on tools that are already available, a custom-made interactive database to fulfill the special needs of DTA-collaborators proved successful and productive. This tool will be made available on the ACE website to be used by other groups with similar needs.
Objectives: The authors of the DTA-review 'Airway physical examination tests for detection of difficult airway management in apparently normal patients' of the Cochrane Anaesthesia, Critical and Emergency Care Group (ACE) strived for a tool to facilitate data-collection for their team scattered across four countries and three continents. The need for such a tool was aggravated by the fact, that this project represents a 'multidimensional' review with multiple target conditions, a multitude of tests, serving both as standard- and index-tests, and that each individual study usually includes a large number of comparisons.
Methods: Based on the QUADAS 2 database by Whiting et al, an MS Access-database to be hosted by a filehosting-service was developed to collect data on measures of DTA on multiple levels (multiple target conditions, index tests and comparisons by each study) and quality assessment, as well as to generate paper-based data extraction- and reporting-forms. (See Fig. 1)
Results: We present the feasibility of a customized interactive database using the example of an ongoing Cochrane DTA review.
Conclusions: Based on tools that are already available, a custom-made interactive database to fulfill the special needs of DTA-collaborators proved successful and productive. This tool will be made available on the ACE website to be used by other groups with similar needs.