Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Feb 1;11(2):112-117.
doi: 10.34172/ijhpm.2020.133.

Experiences of Using Cochrane Systematic Reviews by Local HTA Units

Thomas G Poder  1   2 , Marc Rhainds  3 , Christian A Bellemare  4 , Simon Deblois  5 , Imane Hammana  5 , Catherine Safianyk  6 , Sylvie St-Jacques  6 , Pierre Dagenais  7   8
Affiliations
Review

Experiences of Using Cochrane Systematic Reviews by Local HTA Units

Thomas G Poder et al. Int J Health Policy Manag. .

Abstract

This study evaluated the use of Cochrane systematic reviews (CSRs) by Quebec's local health technology assessment (HTA) units to promote efficiency in hospital decision-making. An online survey was conducted to examine: Characteristics of the HTA units; Knowledge about works and services from the Cochrane Collaboration; Level of satisfaction about the use of CSRs; Facilitating factors and barriers to the implementation of CSRs evidence in a local context; Suggestions to improve the use of CSRs. Data accuracy was checked by 2 independent evaluators. Ten HTA units participated. From their implementation a total of 321 HTA reports were published (49.8% included a SR). Works and services provided by the Cochrane collaboration were very well-known and HTA units were highly satisfied with CSRs (80%-100%). As regards to applicability in HTA and use of CSRs, major strengths were as follow: Useful as resource for search terms and background material; May reduce the workload (eg, brief review instead of full SR); Use to update a current review. Major weaknesses were: Limited use since no CSRs were available for many HTA projects; Difficulty to apply findings to local context; Focused only on efficacy and innocuity; Cannot be used as a substitute to a full HTA report. This study provided a unique context of assessment with a familiar group of producers, users and disseminators of CSRs in hospital setting. Since they generally used other articles from the literature or produce an original SR in complement with CSRs, this led to suggestions to improve their use of CSRs. However, the main limit for the use of CRS in local HTA will remain its lack of contextualisation. As such, this study reinforces the need to consider the notion of complementarity of experimental data informing us about causality and contextual data, allowing decision-making adapted to local issues.

Keywords: Cochrane Systematic Review; Health Technology Assessment; Hospital; Quebec; Systematic Review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 2
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Sackett DL, Rosenberg WM, Gray JA, Haynes RB, Richardson WS. Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t. BMJ. 1996;312(7023):71–72. doi: 10.1136/bmj.312.7023.71. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Poder TG, Bellemare CA. Importance of contextual data in producing health technology assessment recommendations: a case study. Int J Technol Assess Health Care. 2018;34(1):63–67. doi: 10.1017/s0266462317004469. - DOI - PubMed
    1. About Cochrane Reviews. Cochrane Library website. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about/about-cochrane-reviews. Accessed November 15, 2018.
    1. Green S, Higgins J, Alderson P, Clarke M, Mulrow C, Oxman A. Chapter 1: Introduction. In: Higgins J, Green S, eds. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. West Sussex, England: The Cochrane Collaboration and John Wiley; 2008.
    1. Tricco AC, Tetzlaff J, Moher D. Knowledge synthesis. In: Straus SE, Tetroe J, Graham ID, eds. Knowledge Translation in Health Care. Wiley-Blackwell; 2013:29-49. doi:10.1002/9781118413555.ch04

LinkOut - more resources