Impact of searching clinical trials registers in systematic reviews of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions: Reanalysis of meta-analyses.

ABSTRACT: Systematic reviewers are advised to search trials registers to minimise risk of reporting biases. However, there has been little research on the impact of searching trials registers on the results of meta-analyses. We aimed to evaluate the impact of searching clinical trials registers for systematic reviews of pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical interventions. We searched PubMed, Scopus, Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index, and Education Collection for systematic reviews with meta-analyses indexed from 2 November to 2 December 2020. A random sample of systematic reviews was initially drawn, and for reviews which considered randomised trials eligible for inclusion, which had not searched a trials register, we searched ClinicalTrials.gov, EudraCT, ANZCTR, and the WHO I

SUBMITTER: Alqaidoom Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10087877 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature