Prioritising topics for new Cochrane systematic reviews in oral health

Article type
Authors
Littlewood A1, Glenny A1, Walsh T1, Clarkson J1
1Cochrane Oral Health
Abstract
Background

Cochrane Oral Health (COH) is undertaking a priority setting project, in order to ensure that their reviews are clinically important and relevant to consumers. Part of the project is to identify new review topics that may help to fill gaps in the evidence base, and which answer questions that consumers may have about their oral health.

Objectives

The aim of the research was to prioritise topics for new systematic reviews in oral health by:
• Establishing developments in the oral health evidence base by using technology (text mining) to explore clinical trials records for new interventions;
• Identifying evidence gaps from guideline documents;
• Engaging with consumers to establish their priority topics in oral health.

Methods

Three projects were undertaken:

1. The evidence base was explored by searching for clinical trials in oral health. Text mining software was used to pull out interventions from trial registry records to identify any new interventions;
2. Three databases were searched for guidelines in key oral health conditions. Recommendations for further research were extracted and examined for evidence gaps that could be filled by a new systematic review;
3. An online survey was launched so that consumers could suggest any questions that they felt were important for COH to answer.
The results of these three projects were assessed to make sure that they were relevant to oral health, and suitable for a Cochrane review. They were then mapped against COH’s existing systematic review portfolio and any topics not covered were established as potential new priority titles.

Results

The three projects undertaken to find potential new priority topics for COH identified 215 questions or topic areas that were not covered by existing COH reviews. 117 of these (54%) were deemed to be suitable for a COH systematic review by COH’s Priority Setting Steering Group. Of the rejected questions, 25 were not related to Oral Health. The remaining 73 covered questions that are not in Cochrane’s remit: for example, establishing the prevalence of a condition. Thirteen questions in total were identified by more than one of the priority setting projects. These will form part of Cochrane Oral Health’s final priority setting phase, where we intend to involve stakeholders and consumers in an online ranking exercise, looking at both new titles and existing Cochrane reviews.

Conclusions

These three projects combined revealed significant gaps in the evidence that need to be explored further. This methodology could be adopted in other topic areas as an effective priority setting method.

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: Consumers were involved in this project by giving their input in the survey, and their assistance will set the agenda of COH for the next five years.