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Maintaining relevance in HIV systematic reviews: an evaluation of Cochrane reviews

Eshun-Wilson, Ingrid, Jaffer, Shahista, Smith, Rhodine, Johnson, Samuel, Hine, Paul, Mateo, Alberto, Stephani, Anne-Marie and Garner, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0607-6941 (2019) 'Maintaining relevance in HIV systematic reviews: an evaluation of Cochrane reviews'. Systematic Reviews, Vol 8, Issue 46, pp. 1-4.

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Abstract

Background
Research turnover in the HIV field is rapid, and as a result, maintaining high-quality, up-to-date, and relevant systematic reviews is a challenge. One approach is to frequently update published reviews.
Methods
We evaluated the methods and relevance of all HIV systematic reviews and protocols published in the Cochrane Library over a 16-year period (2000–2016) to determine the need to update published reviews or complete of reviews in progress.
Results
Of 148 published reviews and protocols, 129 (87%) were identified as not for updating or progression to publication, mostly due to research questions which were either entirely outdated or addressed questions in an outdated manner (N = 89; 60%); this was anticipated for older reviews, but was found also to be the case for recent publications. Some research questions were also inadequately conceptualized, particularly when complex pragmatic trials or behavioral interventions were included.
Conclusions
We suggest that authors clearly characterize interventions and synthesis approaches in their review protocols. In research fields, such as HIV, where questions change frequently, systematic reviews and protocols should be regularly re-evaluated to ensure relevance to current questions. This process of re-evaluation should be incorporated into the methods of living systematic reviews.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: W General Medicine. Health Professions > W 21 Medicine as a profession.
W General Medicine. Health Professions > Health Services. Patients and Patient Advocacy > W 84.4 Quality of Health Care
W General Medicine. Health Professions > Health Services. Patients and Patient Advocacy > W 84 Health services. Delivery of health care
W General Medicine. Health Professions > W 20.5 Biomedical research
WA Public Health > Statistics. Surveys > WA 950 Theory or methods of medical statistics. Epidemiologic methods
WC Communicable Diseases > Virus Diseases > Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. HIV Infections > WC 503 Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. HIV infections
Faculty: Department: Clinical Sciences & International Health > Clinical Sciences Department
Digital Object Identifer (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-019-0960-5
Depositing User: Stacy Murtagh
Date Deposited: 14 Feb 2019 12:45
Last Modified: 06 Sep 2019 10:16
URI: https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/10165

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