决策者越来越多地要求快速回答临床或公共卫生问题。为了节省时间,人员,和财政资源,快速审查简化了系统审查过程的方法步骤。我们旨在探索快速审查方法的有效性,该方法结合了大量缩写的文献检索与使用三个案例研究的摘要和全文的单审稿人筛选。
我们使用了三个正在进行的Cochrane评论的便利样本作为参考标准。两篇评论涉及肿瘤学主题,一篇评论涉及公共卫生主题。对于这三个主题中的每一个,三位审稿人独立筛选了这些文献。我们的主要结果是快速评论和相应的Cochrane评论之间的结论变化。如果快速方法错过了研究,我们重新计算了主要结局的荟萃分析,并询问Cochrane综述作者,与参考标准相比,新的证据是否会改变他们的原始结论.此外,我们评估了快速审查方法与原始Cochrane审查结果的敏感性.
对于两个肿瘤学主题(案例研究1和2),这三个快速综述各自得出了与Cochrane综述相同的结论.然而,在案例研究2中,作者对他们的结论不太确定。对于案例研究3,公共卫生主题,三个快速评价中只有一个得出了与Cochrane评价相同的结论.另外两个快速评论提供的信息不足以使作者得出结论。使用快速审查方法,病例研究1的敏感性为100%(3/3).对于案例研究2,三个快速审查确定了40%(10个中的4个),50%(5/10),和60%(10个中的6个)的纳入研究,案例研究3分别为38%(21个中的8个),43%(21个中的9个),和48%(21个中的10个)。
在这些案例研究的限制下,对于重点关注的临床问题,将简写的文献检索与单一审查者筛选相结合的快速审查方法可能是可行的.对于复杂的公共卫生主题,敏感性似乎不够。
Decision-makers increasingly request rapid answers to clinical or public health questions. To save time, personnel, and financial resources, rapid reviews streamline the methodological steps of the systematic review process. We aimed to explore the validity of a rapid review approach that combines a substantially abbreviated literature search with a single-reviewer screening of abstracts and full texts using three
case studies.
We used a convenience sample of three ongoing Cochrane reviews as reference standards. Two reviews addressed oncological topics and one addressed a public health topic. For each of the three topics, three reviewers screened the literature independently. Our primary outcome was the change in conclusions between the rapid reviews and the respective Cochrane reviews. In
case the rapid approach missed studies, we recalculated the meta-analyses for the main outcomes and asked Cochrane review authors if the new body of evidence would change their original conclusion compared with the reference standards. Additionally, we assessed the sensitivity of the rapid review approach compared with the results of the original Cochrane reviews.
For the two oncological topics (case studies 1 and 2), the three rapid reviews each yielded the same conclusions as the Cochrane reviews. However, the authors would have had less certainty about their conclusion in
case study 2. For case study 3, the public health topic, only one of the three rapid reviews led to the same conclusion as the Cochrane review. The other two rapid reviews provided insufficient information for the authors to draw conclusions. Using the rapid review approach, the sensitivity was 100% (3 of 3) for
case study 1. For
case study 2, the three rapid reviews identified 40% (4 of 10), 50% (5 of 10), and 60% (6 of 10) of the included studies, respectively; for case study 3, the respective numbers were 38% (8 of 21), 43% (9 of 21), and 48% (10 of 21).
Within the limitations of these case studies, a rapid review approach that combines abbreviated literature searches with single-reviewer screening may be feasible for focused clinical questions. For complex public health topics, sensitivity seems to be insufficient.