Based on the best available information about healthcare interventions, Cochrane reviews explore the evidence for and against the effectiveness and appropriateness of treatments (medications, surgery, education, etc) in specific circumstances. Designed to facilitate the choices that doctors, patients, policy makers and others face in health care, the complete reviews are published in The Cochrane Library four times a year. Each issue contains all existing reviews, plus an increasing range of new and updated reviews.
Cochrane Reviews investigate the effects of interventions for prevention, treatment and rehabilitation in a healthcare setting. They are designed to facilitate the choices that doctors, patients, policy makers and others face in health care. Most Cochrane Reviews are based on randomized controlled trials, but other types of evidence may also be taken into account, if appropriate.http://www.cochrane.org/
Structure of a Cochrane Review
This is the general layout of a Cochrane Review:
1. Plain-language summary - a short statement summarising the review, specifically aimed at lay people.
2. Structured Abstract - a structured summary of the review, subdivided into sections similar to the main review. This may be published independently from the review and appears on the medical bibliographic database MEDLINE.
3. Background - this gives an introduction to the question considered, including, for example, details on causes and incidence of a given problem, the possible mechanism of action of a proposed treatment, uncertainties about management options etc.
4. Objectives - short statement of the aim of the review.
5. Selection criteria - brief description of the main elements of the question under consideration. This is subdivided into:
- Types of studies - for example, randomized controlled trials.
- Types of participants - the population of interest. This section may include details of diagnostic criteria, if desired or appropriate.
- Types of interventions - the main intervention under consideration and any comparison treatments.
- Types of outcome measures - any outcome measures/endpoints (for example, reduction in symptoms) that are considered important by the reviewer, defined in advance; not only outcome measures actually used in trials.
6. Search strategy for identification of studies - details of how an exhaustive identification of relevant information was attempted, including details of searches of electronic databases, searches for unpublished information, handsearching of journals or conference proceedings, searching of reference lists of relevant articles, etc.
7. Methods of the review - description of how studies eligible for inclusion in the review were selected, how their quality was assessed, how data were extracted from the studies, how data were analysed, whether any subgroups were studied or whether any sensitivity analyses were carried out, etc.
8. Description of studies - how many studies were found, what were their inclusion criteria, how big were they, etc.?
9. Methodological quality of included studies - were there any reasons to doubt the conclusions of any studies because of concerns about the study quality?
10. Results - what do the data show? The results section may be accompanied by a graph to show a meta-analysis, if this was carried out.
11. Discussion - interpretation and assessment of results.
12. Authors' conclusions - subdivided into Implications for practice and Implications for research.
This database offers free access to the abstracts and, where available, the plain language summaries of all Cochrane systematic reviews. Links to the full-text versions are available on each page.
http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/index.htm
