Journal article
Empty reviews: a description and consideration of Cochrane systematic reviews with no included studies
- Abstract:
- Background There is no specific guidance for the reporting of Cochrane systematic reviews that do not have studies eligible for inclusion. As a result, the reporting of these so-called “empty reviews” may vary across reviews. This research explores the incidence of empty systematic reviews in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (The CDSR) and describes their current characteristics. Methodology/Principal Findings Empty reviews within The CDSR as of 15 August 2010 were identified, extracted, and coded for analysis. Review group, original publication year, and time since last update, as well as number of studies listed as excluded, awaiting assessment, or on-going within empty reviews were examined. 376 (8.7%) active reviews in The CDSR reported no included studies. At the time of data collection, 45 (84.9%) of the Cochrane Collaboration's 53 Review Groups sustained at least one empty review, with the number of empty reviews for each of these 45 groups ranging from 1 to 35 (2.2–26.9%). Time since original publication of empty reviews ranged from 0 to 15 years with a mean of 4.2 years (SD = 3.4). Time since last assessed as up-to-date ranged from 0 to 12 years with a mean of 2.8 years (SD = 2.2). The number of excluded studies reported in these reviews ranged from 0 to 124, with an average of 9.6 per review (SD = 14.5). Eighty-eight (23.4%) empty reviews reported no excluded studies, studies awaiting assessment, or on-going studies. Conclusions There is a substantial number of empty reviews in The CDSR, and there is some variation in the reporting and updating of empty reviews across Cochrane Review Groups. This variation warrants further analysis, and may indicate a need to develop guidance for the reporting of empty systematic reviews in The CDSR.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 156.3KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0036626
Authors
- Publisher:
- Public Library of Science
- Journal:
- PLoS ONE More from this journal
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 5
- Pages:
- ARTN e36626
- Publication date:
- 2012-05-04
- Acceptance date:
- 2012-04-09
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1932-6203
- ISSN:
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1932-6203
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- UUID:
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uuid:6ec61978-677d-4989-9058-361d68078c33
- Local pid:
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pubs:342684
- Source identifiers:
-
342684
- Deposit date:
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2014-02-26
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Yaffe et al
- Copyright date:
- 2012
- Notes:
- Copyright: © 2012 Yaffe et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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