Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: The explosion of publications about health brings uncertainties to the scientific community about decisions to be taken. Moreover, clinicians, nurses, physical therapists, healthcare managers, policy makers and consumers have wide-ranging information needs: that is, they need good quality information on the effectiveness, relevance, feasibility and appropriateness of a large number of healthcare interventions; not just one or two. Systematic reviews (SRs), which summarize and interpret the results of medical research, are widely accepted worldwide as the best evidence in the literature. PubMed is a big database that includes a large number of scientific journals. The most important journals can be found there.
Objectives: Identify the number of SRs published by Cochrane and other journals in the PubMed database.
Methods: We searched for SRs published in the PubMed database from 2000 to 2014. The search strategy used the Boolean operator AND with each year[dp] from 2000 to 2014. Searching for the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews using the searching box [journal]. Others SRs published in high impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, JAMA, Lancet and British medical journals were compared with Cochrane publications.
Results: Analysis showed there was a significant difference in the number of SRs published between non-Cochrane (8967.9 ± 5182.6) vversuss Cochrane (701.9 ± 202.7); P value < 0.0001. The number of SRs published by Cochrane was significantly elevated when compared with other high impact journals (701.9 ± 202.7) versus (319.5 ± 47.2) publications respectively (P value < 0.0001).
Conclusions: The problem with increased numbers of SRs is the lack of rigour in their conduct. This can lead to bias in their conclusions and subsequent recommendations. In spite of the increased number of publications, Cochrane has the best methodology for formulating SRs, with the best critical appraisal of studies and showing the best evidence in the literature. When reading a Cochrane SR, the scientific community must pay attention to its quality.
Objectives: Identify the number of SRs published by Cochrane and other journals in the PubMed database.
Methods: We searched for SRs published in the PubMed database from 2000 to 2014. The search strategy used the Boolean operator AND with each year[dp] from 2000 to 2014. Searching for the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews using the searching box [journal]. Others SRs published in high impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, JAMA, Lancet and British medical journals were compared with Cochrane publications.
Results: Analysis showed there was a significant difference in the number of SRs published between non-Cochrane (8967.9 ± 5182.6) vversuss Cochrane (701.9 ± 202.7); P value < 0.0001. The number of SRs published by Cochrane was significantly elevated when compared with other high impact journals (701.9 ± 202.7) versus (319.5 ± 47.2) publications respectively (P value < 0.0001).
Conclusions: The problem with increased numbers of SRs is the lack of rigour in their conduct. This can lead to bias in their conclusions and subsequent recommendations. In spite of the increased number of publications, Cochrane has the best methodology for formulating SRs, with the best critical appraisal of studies and showing the best evidence in the literature. When reading a Cochrane SR, the scientific community must pay attention to its quality.