How to conduct systematic reviews more expeditiously?

Abstract

Healthcare consumers, researchers, patients and policy makers increasingly use systematic reviews (SRs) to aid their decision-making process. However, the conduct of SRs can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive task. Often, clinical practice guideline developers or other decision-makers need to make informed decisions in a timely fashion (e.g. outbreaks of infection, hospital-based health technology assessments). Possible approaches to address the issue of timeliness in the production of SRs are to (a) implement process parallelisation, (b) adapt and apply innovative technologies, and/or (c) modify SR processes (e.g. study eligibility criteria, search sources, data extraction or quality assessment). Highly parallelised systematic reviewing requires substantial resources to support a team of experienced information specialists, reviewers and methodologists working alongside with clinical content experts to minimise the time for completing individual review steps while maximising the parallel progression of multiple steps. Effective coordination and management within the team and across external stakeholders are essential elements of this process. Emerging innovative technologies have a great potential for reducing workload and improving efficiency of SR production. The most promising areas of application would be to allow automation of specific SR tasks, in particular if these tasks are time consuming and resource intensive (e.g. language translation, study selection, data extraction). Modification of SR processes involves restricting, truncating and/or bypassing one or more SR steps, which may risk introducing bias to the review findings. Although the growing experiences in producing various types of rapid reviews (RR) and the accumulation of empirical studies exploring potential bias associated with specific SR tasks have contributed to the methodological development for expediting SR production, there is still a dearth of research examining the actual impact of methodological modifications and comparing the findings between RRs and SRs. This evidence would help to inform as to which SR tasks can be accelerated or truncated and to what degree, while maintaining the validity of review findings. Timely delivered SRs can be of value in informing healthcare decisions and recommendations, especially when there is practical urgency and there is no other relevant synthesised evidence.

Comparison of a full systematic review versus rapid review approaches to assess a newborn screening test for tyrosinemia type 1

“…KEYWORDS evidence-based practice, literature searching, rapid review, research methods, systematic review 1 | INTRODUCTION Rapid reviews (also referred to as "rapid evidence reviews" or "rapid evidence assessments," REAs) have received increased interest and recognition across Europe, North America, and Australasia, where there are demands for expedited assessment of the latest evidence to facilitate health policy decisions. [1][2][3][4][5] As yet, there is no standard definition of or approach to REAs. 6,7 Broadly, they offer a streamlined alternative to the traditional systematic review (SR) process.…”

Systematic Reviews for Occupational Safety and Health Questions: Resources for Evidence Synthesis

“…However, it should also be kept in mind that there is only limited research available that has empirically determined the effect of any shortcuts or deviations from systematic review standards (Tsertsvadze et al, 2015). Only a few studies have investigated the incremental value of specific systematic review methods (Dickersin, Scherer, and Lefebvre, 1994;Moher et al, 2000;Bushman and Wells, 2001;Horsley, Dingwall, and Sampson, 2011;Giustini and Boulos, 2013;Selph, Ginsburg, and Chou, 2014;and Haddaway et al, 2015) or have tested the validity of the end product by comparing the conclusions reached in rapid reviews versus systematic reviews (Watt et al, 2008a;Watt et al, 2008b;and Hartling et al, 2015a).…”

Machine learning techniques for the automation of literature reviews and systematic reviews in EFSA

“…and Salim, 2014; Tsafnat et al, 2014;Tsertsvadze et al, 2015). The fourth article, being Jonnalagadda et al (2015) specifically focused on the data extraction step of the review.…”

“…In addition, when focusing on automation through MLTs in the review by Tsertsvadze et al (2015), it was noted that they mainly referred to the overview by Tsafnat et al (2014) for a general idea of automation. In terms of specific steps of the reviewing process, referrals were made to Jonnalagadda et al (2015) for data extraction and O' MaraEves et al (2014) for the screening of abstracts.…”

“…The European Food Safety Authority reserves its rights, view and position as regards the issues addressed and the conclusions reached in the present document, without prejudice to the rights of the author. and Salim, 2014; Tsafnat et al, 2014;Tsertsvadze et al, 2015). The fourth article, being Jonnalagadda et al (2015) specifically focused on the data extraction step of the review.…”