Introduction
What is new?
Key findings- •
Almost all systematic reviews published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR 98%) and Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE 88%) and within communicable diseases, noncommunicable diseases, and injury-related conditions were focused on T2 phase research (T2: research involving human trials to generate evidence-based guidelines).
What this adds to what was known?- •
Few T3 (research examining how to move evidence-based guidelines into practice) and T4 (research examining the impact of implementation of evidence-based guidelines on population health) focused systematic reviews are available in CDSR and DARE.
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Practitioners and policy makers may have little evidence to guide practice and policy decisions.
What is the implication and what should change now?- •
Efforts to increase the production of T3 and T4 systematic reviews including issuing targeted calls for such reviews, establishing funding schemes, and creating more specialist journals for dissemination are needed.
To maximize the benefits of investments in health research, basic science discoveries need to be tested via clinical trials to determine their efficacy, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness. Those interventions found to be effective and cost effective must then be adopted as part of clinical or public health practice in order for community benefit to be achieved [1], [2]. The process of moving research into practice is known as translational research and encompasses four distinct but related phases [3]. Phase 1 (T1) research involves moving basic science discoveries, such as understanding disease mechanisms, into research involving human patients. Phase 2 (T2) research aims to facilitate movement from human patient–oriented research into evidence-based guidelines. Phase 3 (T3) research involves examining how to move evidence-based guidelines into health practice in organizations and communities, and phase 4 (T4) research examines the impact of changing health practices on population health outcomes [3].
Despite the importance of each phase of research translation, analysis of research funding and activity suggests that most research output has focused on the first two phases of translation (innovation development and testing in humans), with little attention given to improving methods of dissemination or uptake of evidence-based practice [4]. Although systematic reviews are key to facilitating research translation [5], to date there has been no examination of the proportion of systematic reviews that report findings from trials within each different research translation phase (T1–T4). Therefore, this study aimed to describe the translation phase focus (T1–T4) of systematic reviews published in two databases of high quality—the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) and the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE). A secondary aim of the study was to describe post hoc the proportion of T1–T4 reviews examining communicable diseases, noncommunicable diseases, and injury-related conditions within these databases.