Background
Time to complete systematic reviews
Current preparation for reviewing
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Overestimated—and eventually review teams have no or very few studies for their new review or update—with the waste this would incur.
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Underestimated—and the team is eventually surprised and, perhaps, overwhelmed with many relevant studies, with the risk of
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◦ Publishing a protocol but finding completion of the review unaffordable or impossible with the resulting wasteful unfinished or empty review.
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◦ Requesting extensions to funding; and/or
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◦ Running into delays that may render the final work being immediately out of date.
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Accurately estimated—but what remains unclear is as to whether the investment needed to review/update is warranted by any potential to change what is already known.
Waste in systematic reviewing and information supply
Study-based registers
Aims and objectives
‘Living’ study-based registers
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Exact number of
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◦ Studies/related records in a field (e.g. schizophrenia, tardive dyskinesia);
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◦ Studies/related records relevant to a new title or update (e.g. vitamin E for people with tardive dyskinesia);
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◦ Studies/related records relevant to a class of interventions (e.g. calcium channel blockers);
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◦ Studies that have/have not already been data-extracted, and the extracted data were available;
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◦ Existing related reviews on a topic—and quantification of studies/related records within each review;
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◦ Comparisons possible to accurately scope existing relevant evidence on a given topic—and quantification of studies/related records within each comparison [45];
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Alerts to
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◦ New studies, records to known studies and novel relevant treatments;
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◦ Research gaps in topic areas devoid of/with a dearth of evidence;
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For the studies
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◦ Concatenated importable references, the output of each study or all the relevant studies;
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◦ Full reports of each studies collected into a study folder;
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◦ Completed data extraction forms of studies where available.
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A case report from schizophrenia
Estimates of costs for the grant application
Prediction of best composition of families of reviews
Anticholinergic medication for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [53] | |
Antipsychotic reduction and/or cessation and antipsychotics as specific treatments for tardive dyskinesia [54] | |
Benzodiazepines for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [55] | |
Calcium channel blockers for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [56] | |
Cholinergic medication for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [57] | |
Gamma-aminobutyric acid agonists for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [58] | |
Miscellaneous treatments for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [59] | |
Non-antipsychotic catecholaminergic drugs for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [60] | |
Pyridoxal 5 phosphate for neuroleptic-induced tardive dyskinesiaa [61] | |
Vesicular monoamine transporter inhibitors versus placebo for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesiab [62] | |
Vitamin E for antipsychotic-induced tardive dyskinesia [63] |
Prediction of effort needed at data extraction step and saving effort for others
Supply of documents
Future supply of full dataset
Updating
The upside
The downside
Feasibility of study-based registers
Volume | Records: | ~ 20,000 studies ~ 30,000 references/reports |
PICO meta-data: | ~ 230 healthcare conditions; ~ 2700 interventionsa; ~ 13,700 outcomes | |
Variety | Standard protocols for meta-data: | For references (RIS); For studies (PICO) |
Veracity | Document coverage | |
Type: | Any | |
Language | All | |
Date/time: | Any | |
Geography | Worldwide | |
Publication status: | Published/unpublished | |
Status of study: | Allb | |
Reliability | ||
Two independent Information Specialists checked data. | ||
Velocity | Information specialist | Screens 1000–2000 references per month; Adds 100–200 eligible references to register. |
Value | Software: free. | |
Current number of maintained systematic reviews: 324. | ||
Retracted studies: retraction linked into study record. | ||
Reproducibility and replicability: all SBR’s review-specific steps can be repeated within seconds [100]. | ||
Prioritising: sensitive/specific direction of effort | ||
Human resources: skilled information specialist | ||
Establish register | 1 year (F/T) 2–3 years (P/T 50%) | |
Maintain register | 1 day/week |