Abstract
BackgroundRapid reviews (RRs) have emerged as an efficient alternative to time-consuming systematic reviews—they can help meet the demand for accelerated evidence synthesis to inform decision-making in healthcare. The synthesis of diagnostic evidence has important methodological challenges. Here, we performed an international survey to identify the current practice of producing RRs for diagnostic tests.MethodsWe developed and administered an online survey inviting institutions that perform RRs of diagnostic tests from all over the world.ResultsAll participants (N = 25) reported the implementation of one or more methods to define the scope of the RR; however, only one strategy (defining a structured question) was used by ≥90% of participants. All participants used at least one methodological shortcut including the use of a previous review as a starting point (92%) and the use of limits on the search (96%). Parallelization and automation of review tasks were not extensively used (48 and 20%, respectively).ConclusionOur survey indicates a greater use of shortcuts and limits for conducting diagnostic test RRs versus the results of a recent scoping review analyzing published RRs. Several shortcuts are used without knowing how their implementation affects the results of the evidence synthesis in the setting of diagnostic test reviews. Thus, a structured evaluation of the challenges and implications of the adoption of these RR methods is warranted.
Highlights
Rapid reviews (RRs) have emerged as an efficient alternative to time-consuming systematic reviews— they can help meet the demand for accelerated evidence synthesis to inform decision-making in healthcare
In a previous scoping review, we examined the characteristics of RRs of diagnostic tests by scrutinizing repositories of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) agencies and papers published in indexed journals [20]
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first international survey assessing the current practice of methods for diagnostic test RRs
Summary
Rapid reviews (RRs) have emerged as an efficient alternative to time-consuming systematic reviews— they can help meet the demand for accelerated evidence synthesis to inform decision-making in healthcare. The methods for performing systematic reviews are well established for the field of medical test accuracy as with other areas of healthcare [11]. In response to the demand for accelerated evidence syntheses to inform clinical decisions and policy, efforts have been made to standardize the methods and strategies for carrying out RRs while often extrapolating from effectiveness and safety RRs [4, 6, 7, 15, 16]. In diagnostic accuracy SRs, the synthesis of evidence requires statistical knowledge to fit the complex statistical models needed for conducting metaanalyses [11, 12, 19]
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