Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic started in Wuhan China in December 2019 and as a result critically important scientific literature has emerged from Chinese clinicians, healthcare workers and researchers. WHO therefore began working with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Guideline Implementation and Knowledge Translation (WHO CC) of Lanzhou University, China to develop and maintain a repository of relevant Chinese-language scientific publications related to COVID-19.
Objectives: To describe the approach for developing, maintaining and disseminating search results and a bibliographic database of Chinese-language publications related to COVID-19.
Methods: WHO approached the WHO CC on 31 January 2020 regarding the possibility of developing a Chinese-language bibliographic database. A multi-disciplinary team of researchers at the WHO CC worked to establish the database, including 1 methodologist, 1 librarian, and several researchers. The librarian and methodologist developed search strategies and selected two Chinese Core databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Chinese Medical Journal Network Database). In addition, they manually searched 12 Chinese core journals. Data were extracted for each publication, including title, author, journal, DOI, abstract, keywords, categories, and full-text link. When English abstracts were not provided by the journal, the WHO CC provided a brief summary in English. The extracted information was presented in the WORD and sent to WHO daily, along with an EndNote library to facilitate searching.
Results: The WHO CC center started to deliver COVID-19 Chinese literature to WHO on 7 February 2020. As of 12 April 2020, 2057 publications have been delivered over 66 days. The number of daily publications steadily increased to a peak on 18 March (n=66), after which the number trended downward, although with significant fluctuation. The main types of publications included peer-reviewed journal articles (including pre-online publications) and guidelines or expert consensus publications. The WHO CC team needed approximately 16-18 h/day for searching, screening, information extraction, translation and editing. At the time of writing, efforts are being made to enhance the search capabilities and to move the database into the public domain, combining it with WHO’s main COVID-19 publication database. While a formal evaluation has not as yet been feasible given the outbreak situation, anecdotal reports from the WHO Incident Management Team indicate that the Chinese COVID-19 literature database is reviewed daily and informs decision-making. The Cochrane Network and teams performing reviews for WHO used this database. A formal evaluation is planned once the outbreak situation allows.
Conclusions: Daily searches of the Chinese-language literature complement the primarily English-language bibliographic searches conducted by WHO. This resource appears to be highly valued by WHO. Work is underway to make the database public so that clinicians, researchers and institutions globally can access it.
Objectives: To describe the approach for developing, maintaining and disseminating search results and a bibliographic database of Chinese-language publications related to COVID-19.
Methods: WHO approached the WHO CC on 31 January 2020 regarding the possibility of developing a Chinese-language bibliographic database. A multi-disciplinary team of researchers at the WHO CC worked to establish the database, including 1 methodologist, 1 librarian, and several researchers. The librarian and methodologist developed search strategies and selected two Chinese Core databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Chinese Medical Journal Network Database). In addition, they manually searched 12 Chinese core journals. Data were extracted for each publication, including title, author, journal, DOI, abstract, keywords, categories, and full-text link. When English abstracts were not provided by the journal, the WHO CC provided a brief summary in English. The extracted information was presented in the WORD and sent to WHO daily, along with an EndNote library to facilitate searching.
Results: The WHO CC center started to deliver COVID-19 Chinese literature to WHO on 7 February 2020. As of 12 April 2020, 2057 publications have been delivered over 66 days. The number of daily publications steadily increased to a peak on 18 March (n=66), after which the number trended downward, although with significant fluctuation. The main types of publications included peer-reviewed journal articles (including pre-online publications) and guidelines or expert consensus publications. The WHO CC team needed approximately 16-18 h/day for searching, screening, information extraction, translation and editing. At the time of writing, efforts are being made to enhance the search capabilities and to move the database into the public domain, combining it with WHO’s main COVID-19 publication database. While a formal evaluation has not as yet been feasible given the outbreak situation, anecdotal reports from the WHO Incident Management Team indicate that the Chinese COVID-19 literature database is reviewed daily and informs decision-making. The Cochrane Network and teams performing reviews for WHO used this database. A formal evaluation is planned once the outbreak situation allows.
Conclusions: Daily searches of the Chinese-language literature complement the primarily English-language bibliographic searches conducted by WHO. This resource appears to be highly valued by WHO. Work is underway to make the database public so that clinicians, researchers and institutions globally can access it.