The Cochrane Stroke Group produces and maintains systematic reviews of interventions for the secondary prevention of stroke, the acute treatment and rehabilitation of stroke patients and the organisation of stroke services. Central to this process is the support given to reviewers to identify all trials relevant to their review topic.
The major resource available for reviewers is the Cochrane Stroke Group Trials Register, a study-based register of randomised controlled trials and controlled clinical trials. The register is the result of a comprehensive and up-to-date trials identification programme carried out at the Group’s editorial base in Edinburgh. Each trial report is coded in detail from a copy of the original publication using a specially developed intervention coding system. Multiple reports of the same trial are then linked. This approach enables search strategies to be developed for each review using the intervention coding system, facilitates tracking of individual trials, particularly trials in progress and has identified specific areas where new systematic reviews are needed. The Information Specialist works with individual reviewers to design additional intervention-specific search strategies to complement the Cochrane Stroke Group general strategy and increase the likelihood of finding relevant trials. She is actively involved in preparing the search strategy section of reviews and protocols prior to publication in the Cochrane Library. This presentation will describe the challenges involved in helping an international group of individuals, reviewing diverse topics in stroke healthcare, to identify all relevant trials, both published and unpublished.
Our Trials Register now contains over 6800 reports in all languages relating to more than 3200 individual trials. Although pharmacological agents account for the majority of trials, the register includes studies of a wide range of non-drug interventions including rehabilitation, surgery and complementary medicine. Bibliographic details of the published trials are available in the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials in the Cochrane Library. More than 220 individuals based in 21 countries have contributed to the preparation of 72 Cochrane systematic reviews and a further 36 are in preparation.
The Information Specialist plays a crucial role in the review process and provides considerable support for reviewers searching for trials. The major resource is the Cochrane Stroke Group Trials Register and a wide programme of complementary strategies maximises trial identification.
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