Abstract
Rapid reviews have been widely employed to support timely decision-making, and limiting the search date is the most popular approach in published rapid reviews. We assessed the accuracy and workload of search date limits on the meta-analytical results to determine the best rapid strategy. The meta-analyses data were collected from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR). We emulated the rapid reviews by limiting the search date of the original CDSR to the recent 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 7, 5, and 3 years, and their results were compared to the full meta-analyses. A random sample of 10% was drawn to repeat the literature search by the same timeframe limits to measure the relative workload reduction (RWR). The relationship between accuracy and RWR was established. We identified 21,363 meta-analyses of binary outcomes and 7683 meta-analyses of continuous outcomes from 2693 CDSRs. Our results suggested that under a maximum tolerance of 5% and 10% on the bias of magnitude, a limit on the recent 20 years can achieve good accuracy and at the same time save the most workload. Under the tolerance of 15% and 20% on the bias, a limit on the recent 10 years and 15 years could be considered. Limiting the search date is a valid rapid method to produce credible evidence for timely decisions. When conducting rapid reviews, researchers should consider both the accuracy and workload to make an appropriate decision.
Highlights
Credible evidence is the fundamental base for scientific decision-making regarding healthcare interventions
Our results suggested that narrower search date limits in rapid reviews would lead to less accuracy of the results and a higher possibility to alter the conclusions of full systematic reviews, due to the loss of eligible studies
We investigated the accuracy of a rapid review under different scenarios
Summary
Credible evidence is the fundamental base for scientific decision-making regarding healthcare interventions. To ensure the quality of the evidence, the process of systematic review needs to be conscientious and rigorous As a result, it is often time-consuming and requires 6 months to 2 years to complete [3, 4]. The proposition of the rapid review approach provides an effective solution for decisionmakers [5,6,7] It employs streamlined processes for the components of the systematic review that enables researchers to synthesize evidence in a shorter period of time [8,9]. The limit on search date in practice is generally subjective and arbitrary – some rapid review authors may limit the search date to the recent 10 years, while some may limit it to at most 7 years or 5 years As a result, it is unclear whether the evidence under such limits is credible or subject to bias
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