Locating studies for your systematic review
What are we trying to achieve?Up-to-date, relevant, unbiased systematic reviews of the effects of interventions for particular health care problems How do we achieve this?By locating all possible randomised controlled trials of interventions for these health care problems. Can I get help when trying to locate trials for my review?Yes, once your systematic review title has been registered with our group, one of our Trials Search Coordinators [TSC] is assigned to your review. Our Review Group Coordinator forwards your name, review title and contact details to the TSC, who then contacts you to discuss your needs in developing the best search strategy for locating all relevant reports of trials for your systematic review. A draft MEDLINE strategy is then developed by the Trials Search Coordinator and sent to you for your comments. Once the MEDLINE strategy has been agreed on, the Trials Search Coordinator will then develop a strategy for EMBASE and the Cochrane Library for you. What is the role of a Trials Search Coordinators?The Cochrane Renal Group's Trial Search Coordinators [TSCs] have a major role in supporting reviewers to locate trials. This is done in three main ways:
What is the Cochrane Renal Group's Specialised Register?The Cochrane Renal Group's specialised register consists of studies that assess interventions in diseases covered by our scope. Randomised controlled trials or quasi-randomised controlled trials are included in this register. Any prospective study that compares two or more interventions concurrently and is performed on humans is included; i.e. in the case of published reports of trials, all reports of trials in which participants are definitely or possibly prospectively assigned to one of two (or more) alternative forms of health care, using either random allocation or some quasi-random method of allocation (such as alternation, date of birth or medical record number) are eligible for inclusion. The agreed eligibility criteria for included studies are sensitive rather than precise. It is the responsibility of those perforing systematic reviews to decide which trials to include or exclude in any given review. The register is built by regularly searching the Cochrane Library's Controlled Trials Register, MEDLINE and EMBASE, and by handseraching renal journals and abstracts of conference proceedings. We currently have over 8000 records on our register of published and ongoing studies. We are currently developing a study-based register using MeerKat software Our register of trials is published each year on the Renal Health Library available via the web or on CD. Email us for a copy. Can I get more information on locating studies for my review or designing a search strategy?Yes, for a presentation providing strategies on locating studies for your review in either Powerpoint or as a web document click below. |
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