Past, present and future of living systematic review: a bibliometrics analysis.

INTRODUCTION: In recent years, the concept of living systematic review (LSR) has attracted the attention of many scholars and institutions. A growing number of studies have been conducted based on LSR methodology, but their focus direction is unclear. The objective of this study was to provide a comprehensive review of existing LSR-related studies and to analyse their whole picture and future trends with bibliometrics. METHODS: A comprehensive search strategy was used to construct a representative dataset of LSRs up to October 2021. GraphPad V.8.2.1 and Mindmaster Pro presented the basic information of the included studies and the timeline of LSR development, respectively. The author and country cooperation network, hotspot distribution clustering, historical citation network and future development trend prediction related to LSR were visualised by VOSviewer V.1.6.16 and R-Studio V.1.4. RESULTS: A total of 213 studies were eventually included. The concept of LSR was first proposed in 2014, and the number of studies has proliferated since 2020. There was a closer collaboration between author teams and more frequent LSR research development and collaboration in Europe, North America and Australia. Numerous LSR studies have been published in high-impact journals. COVID-19 is the predominant disease of concern at this stage, and the rehabilitation of its patients and virological studies are possible directions of research in LSR for a long time to come. A review of existing studies found that more than half of the LSR series had not yet been updated and that the method needed to be more standardised in practice. CONCLUSION: Although LSR has a relatively short history, it has received much attention and currently has a high overall acceptance. The LSR methodology was further practised in COVID-19, and we look forward to seeing it applied in more areas.

Chinese herbal medicine and COVID-19: quality evaluation of clinical guidelines and expert consensus and analysis of key recommendations.

To systematically review the clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for the treatment of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), assess the methodological quality as well as clinical credibility and implementability of specific recommendations, and summarize key recommendations. Methods: As of April 2022, we conducted a comprehensive search on major electronic databases, guideline websites, academic society websites, and government websites to assess the methodological quality and clinical applicability of the included CPGs using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II tool and Evaluation-Recommendations EXcellence (AGREE-REX) instructions, respectively. Results: The search yielded 61 CPGs, which were mostly published in 2020; moreover, 98.4% of the CPGs were published in China. Only five CPGs achieved a high-quality AGREE II rating; further, six CPGs could be directly recommended, with most of the CPGs still showing much room for improvement. CPGs had a low overall score in the AGREE-REX evaluation, with the domains of clinical applicability, values and preferences, and implementability being standardized in 21.80% ±â€…12.56%, 16.00% ±â€…11.81%, and 31.33% ±â€…14.55% of the CPGs, respectively. Five high-quality CPGs mentioned 56 Chinese herbal formulas. Half of the recommendations had moderate or strong evidence level in the GRADE evaluation. The most frequently recommended herbal medicines were Lianhua Qingwen granule/capsule and Jinhua Qinggan granule; however, the strength of recommendation for each prescription varied across CPGs and populations. Conclusions: The overall quality of current CPGs for COVID-19 for CHM still needs to be improved; moreover, the strength of the evidence remains to be standardized across CPGs. Graphical abstract: http://links.lww.com/AHM/A34.