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Abbreviated and comprehensive literature searches led to identical or very similar effect estimates
A meta-epidemiological study
Ewald, H., Klerings, I., Wagner, G., Heise, T. L., Dobrescu, A. I., Armijo-Olivo, S., Stratil, J. M., Lhachimi, S. K., Mittermayr, T., Gartlehner, G., Nussbaumer-Streit, B., & Hemkens, L. G. (2020). Abbreviated and comprehensive literature searches led to identical or very similar effect estimates: A meta-epidemiological study. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 128, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.08.002, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.08.002
Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the agreement of treatment effect estimates from meta-analyses based on abbreviated or comprehensive literature searches.Study Design and Setting: This was a meta-epidemiological study. We abbreviated 47 comprehensive Cochrane review searches and searched MEDLINE/Embase/CENTRAL alone, in combination, with/without checking references (658 new searches). We compared one meta-analysis from each review with recalculated ones based on abbreviated searches.Results: The 47 original meta-analyses included 444 trials (median 6 per review [interquartile range (IQR) 3-11]) with 360045 participants (median 1,371 per review [IQR 685-8,041]). Depending on the search approach, abbreviated searches led to identical effect estimates in 34-79% of meta-analyses, to different effect estimates with the same direction and level of statistical significance in 15-51%, and to opposite effects (or effects could not be estimated anymore) in 6-13%. The deviation of effect sizes was zero in 50% of the meta analyses and in 75% not larger than 1.07-fold. Effect estimates of abbreviated searches were not consistently smaller or larger (median ratio of odds ratio 1 [IQR 1-1.01]) but more imprecise (1.02-1.06-fold larger standard errors).Conclusion: Abbreviated literature searches often led to identical or very similar effect estimates as comprehensive searches with slightly increased confidence intervals. Relevant deviations may occur. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.
