Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Some public health systematic reviews examine interventions that reflect transdisciplinary health concepts, creating challenges in identifying either too many or too few eligible studies. Two sources may be of use: existing reviews’ evidence tables and reference lists, and a specialist public health trials register (TRoPHI). The costs and benefits of searching these sources to identify eligible trials are unknown.
Objective: To assess the incremental costs and benefits of searching for eligible trials in evidence tables and reference lists of existing systematic reviews, compared with a TRoPHI search, in a case study systematic review of community engagement interventions.
Methods: We searched six multidisciplinary databases for existing reviews, and TRoPHI, to capture records of eligible trials. Two researchers independently screened systematic reviews and TRoPHI records, followed by full-texts, to identify eligible trials. The researchers prospectively tracked the flow of records and studies through screening and time taken to complete the process (searches, screening and duplicate removal).
Results: The TRoPHI search retrieved 865 unique records, of which 226 corresponding full-texts were screened to identify 153 reports of eligible trials: the search, screening and duplicate removal process took 31.0 hours. The systematic reviews search retrieved 342 reviews containing 703 unique records of trials, of which 153 were reports of eligible trials: the search, screening and duplicate removal process took 128.5 hours. No additional eligible trial reports were identified by searching existing systematic reviews. Analysis of costs is in process.
Conclusions: Searching existing systematic reviews increased the cost of study identification with no incremental benefit to the review in this case. Researchers undertaking complex reviews are encouraged to consider the transdisciplinary nature of their review topic to help determine the relative trade-offs for each source in terms of time, effort and yield of unique citations. Further case studies could help establish appropriate methods of searching systematic reviews to source primary studies.
Objective: To assess the incremental costs and benefits of searching for eligible trials in evidence tables and reference lists of existing systematic reviews, compared with a TRoPHI search, in a case study systematic review of community engagement interventions.
Methods: We searched six multidisciplinary databases for existing reviews, and TRoPHI, to capture records of eligible trials. Two researchers independently screened systematic reviews and TRoPHI records, followed by full-texts, to identify eligible trials. The researchers prospectively tracked the flow of records and studies through screening and time taken to complete the process (searches, screening and duplicate removal).
Results: The TRoPHI search retrieved 865 unique records, of which 226 corresponding full-texts were screened to identify 153 reports of eligible trials: the search, screening and duplicate removal process took 31.0 hours. The systematic reviews search retrieved 342 reviews containing 703 unique records of trials, of which 153 were reports of eligible trials: the search, screening and duplicate removal process took 128.5 hours. No additional eligible trial reports were identified by searching existing systematic reviews. Analysis of costs is in process.
Conclusions: Searching existing systematic reviews increased the cost of study identification with no incremental benefit to the review in this case. Researchers undertaking complex reviews are encouraged to consider the transdisciplinary nature of their review topic to help determine the relative trade-offs for each source in terms of time, effort and yield of unique citations. Further case studies could help establish appropriate methods of searching systematic reviews to source primary studies.