Searching for trial protocols: A comparison of methods

Abstract

For protocols of trial results published pre-2005, review authors should contact authors as a priority. For protocols post-2005, they should check the trial publication for protocol details, search trial registers, and contact authors, ceasing searching once a predetermined point of diminishing returns has been reached.

State of the art, state of the science?

“…Collaborations span institutions and the academic‐commercial divide . Academic review organizations (eg, ScHARR, PenTag, and YHEC) and health technology agencies (eg, CADTH) and networks (such as Cochrane , and the Medical Library Association collaboration) continue to play a critical part. Interest in sources and in indexing for retrieval persists through the decades.…”

“…Academic review organizations (eg, ScHARR, PenTag, and YHEC) and health technology agencies (eg, CADTH) and networks (such as Cochrane , and the Medical Library Association collaboration) continue to play a critical part. Interest in sources and in indexing for retrieval persists through the decades. Although, understandably, a preoccupation with trial reports continues to drive the agenda, presaged by the 1994 BMJ article, this Special Issue reflects wider interests in trial protocols, unpublished data, and qualitative studies .…”

“…Interest in sources and in indexing for retrieval persists through the decades. Although, understandably, a preoccupation with trial reports continues to drive the agenda, presaged by the 1994 BMJ article, this Special Issue reflects wider interests in trial protocols, unpublished data, and qualitative studies . The latter addition is particularly welcomed by me, as a Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group coconvenor, given that qualitative research remains a poor relation in terms of research outputs and research funding.…”

“…This accurately captures the prevailing zeitgeist for systematic review efficiency and rapid review methods. Efficiencies are claimed for search strategy construction, randomized controlled trial (RCT) screening, and for searching for protocols, and all three authorial teams provide empirical evidence to support their claims. Such efficiencies must be accompanied by robust quality assurance procedures; for one of which, peer review of search strategies, we now have important supplemental evidence of benefit …”

Innovation in information retrieval methods for evidence synthesis studies

“…The expansion in the definition of evidence in terms of both format and research tradition is addressed by three contributions. Sutton et al and Isojärvi et al consider the challenges of retrieving unpublished evidence, where searching cannot rely on the standardized bibliographic format of meta‐data and abstracts, or the organized navigation offered by the controlled indexing of database thesauri . Isojärvi and colleagues review in detail sources of unpublished trial data and consider the issues associated with how these important sources might best be interrogated.…”