Quality of evidence of the efficacy of therapeutic interventions on patient-important outcomes in Cochrane's systematic reviews' abstracts: A survey.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to evaluate the proportion of therapeutics that have proven their efficacy on patient-important outcomes with a high quality of evidence among Cochrane systematic reviews (SRs). METHODS: We surveyed a random sample of 400 SRs' abstracts published between September 2012 and December 2015, which compared therapeutic interventions with at least a placebo or no intervention control. The primary endpoint was the proportion of SRs with a statistically significant efficacy on a patient-important outcome and with a high quality of evidence. RESULTS: Among the 400 abstracts surveyed, 32 (8%) found efficacy on a patient-important outcome with a high quality of evidence. Half of the 400 SRs (50.2%) evaluated a pharmacological intervention and 12% of these found efficacy of the intervention on a patient-important outcome with a reported high quality of evidence. CONCLUSION: Based on an analysis of 400 abstracts of SRs from the Cochrane Collaboration, we found that there is a low number of therapeutic interventions which have proven their efficacy on patient-important outcomes with a high quality of evidence.