engleski

The use of systematic reviews in randomized controlled trials in anesthesiology

Objectives: Systematic reviews (SRs) summarize current knowledge on a certain clinical question. To avoid research waste, new randomized clinical trials (RCTs) should be initiated if previous SRs indicate that there is no such evidence or that there is insufficient evidence from previous RCTs. The objective of this study was to analyze whether previous SRs are mentioned in RCTs published in anesthesiology journals as a rationale for conducting the RCT and for discussing the results. Methods: This was a meta-epidemiological, descriptive cross-sectional study. We analyzed RCTs published in the seven first-quartile journals from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) category Anesthesiology between 2014 and 2016. We studied text and bibliography of the RCTs to assess whether the authors made a reference to previous SRs when justifying the need for their own clinical trial and discussing the results. Results: Almost half of the included RCTs (44%) did not mention a single systematic review, either in text explicitly or as a reference. Around 10% of the included RCTs mentioned a previous systematic review as a justification for conducting a trial. Between 2014 and 2016 we noted no significant difference in the number of SRs mentioned as a justification in introduction or discussion but the total number of SRs mentioned increased significantly (F= 3.73, P= 0.035). Conclusions: Although an increase of total mentions of systematic reviews was observed, the percentage of articles that actually used them to justify their trials did not change significantly.

systematic reviews ; randomized controlled trials ; anesthesiology

nije evidentirano