The Cochrane Library (named after Archie Cochrane) is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided by Cochrane and other organizations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analyses that summarize and interpret the results of medical research. The Cochrane Library aims to make the results of well-conducted clinical trials readily available and is a key resource in evidence-based medicine.

Access and use

The Cochrane Library is a subscription-based database, published initially by Update Software and now published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. as part of Wiley Online Library. In many countries, including parts of Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Australia, India, South Africa, and Poland, it has been made available free to all residents by "national provision" (typically a government or Department of Health pays for the license).[1] Other countries negotiate for a national license, which similarly provides free Cochrane access to all residents; in Switzerland, the national license is funded by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries, university hospitals, and the Federal Office of Public Health.[2][3] There are also arrangements for free access in much of Latin America and in "low-income countries", typically via HINARI. All countries have free access to two-page abstracts of all Cochrane Reviews and short plain-language summaries of selected articles.[1]

Cochrane Reviews appear to be relatively underused in the United States for two reasons: 1) Public access to the Cochrane Library in the United States is limited (the state of Wyoming is an exception, having paid for a license to enable free access to Cochrane Reviews for all residents of Wyoming).[4] 2) The government-funded U.S. National Library of Medicine maintains an alternative database MEDLINE, which is free of charge to everyone and has significantly more extensive coverage than Cochrane.

From 26 March to 26 May 2020, the Cochrane Library provided temporary unrestricted access to everyone in every country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[5]

Contents

The Cochrane Library consists of the following databases after significant changes in 2018:

  • The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (Cochrane Reviews). Contains all the peer-reviewed systematic reviews and protocols (Cochrane Protocols) prepared by the Cochrane Review Groups.
  • The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL). CENTRAL is a database that contains details of articles of controlled trials and other studies of healthcare interventions from bibliographic databases (majorly MEDLINE and EMBASE), and other published and unpublished sources that are difficult to access, including trials from the trial registries such as International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and ClinicalTrials.gov.[6][7] However, systematic reviewers need to search not only CENTRAL but also ICTRP and ClinicalTrials.gov to identify unpublished studies.[8]
  • Cochrane Clinical Answers. These evidence summaries on a variety of questions of interest to healthcare professionals have a user-friendly presentation with graphics and high-level conclusions of the research evidence based on Cochrane Reviews.[9]

The Cochrane Library now also features results from Special Collections and Editorials as well as an option to link out to other reviews compiled by Epistemonikos.[9][10]

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Protocols, and CENTRAL are produced by Cochrane.

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
DisciplineMedicine
LanguageEnglish
Edited byDr Karla Soares-Weiser
Publication details
History1996–present
Publisher
Wiley
11.874 (2021)
Standard abbreviations
ISO 4Cochrane Database Syst. Rev.
Indexing
ISSN2044-4702 (print)1469-493X (web)
LCCN99039924

Die Cochrane-Reviews sind methodische Studien in voller Länge. Cochrane-Forscher durchsuchen medizinische und gesundheitsbezogene Datenbanken wie MEDLINE / PubMed , EMBASE , PsycINFO , CINAHL usw.; die ständig aktualisierte Datenbank für Studien, das Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL); führen manuelle Recherchen durch, bei denen die Forscher ganze Bibliotheken wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriften durchsuchen ; und prüfen die Referenzen der gefundenen Artikel, um weitere Studien zu identifizieren, die für die zu beantwortende Frage relevant sind. Die Qualität jeder Studie wird anhand vordefinierter Kriterien sorgfältig bewertet, und Hinweise auf methodische Schwächen oder mögliche Verzerrungen werden im Review dokumentiert.

Die Forscher von Cochrane wenden anschließend statistische Analysen an , um die Daten der Studien zu vergleichen. Dadurch entsteht eine Übersichtsarbeit, auch systematische Übersichtsarbeit genannt , die einen umfassenden Überblick über die Wirksamkeit einer bestimmten medizinischen Intervention bietet. Die fertigen Übersichtsarbeiten sind als vollständiger Bericht mit Diagrammen, in Kurzform oder als allgemeinverständliche Zusammenfassung verfügbar, um jedem Leser der Übersichtsarbeit einen verständlichen Überblick zu geben. [ 11 ]

Abstraktion und Indexierung

Laut Journal Citation Reports hatte die Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2021 einen Impact Factor von 11,874 und belegte damit Platz 20 von 172 Zeitschriften in der Kategorie Medizin, Allgemein und Innerer Medizin, nach Platz 11 im Jahr 2020 (167 Zeitschriften). [ 12 ] Die Reviews werden in den folgenden bibliografischen Datenbanken erfasst und indexiert : Science Citation Index Expanded , Scopus , CINAHL , EMBASE und MEDLINE . [ 13 ]

Akademische Kommentare

Das Feedback-Tool der Cochrane Library ermöglicht es Nutzern, Kommentare und Feedback zu Cochrane Reviews und Protokollen in der Cochrane Library abzugeben. Wird das Feedback akzeptiert, wird es in einer scrollbaren Liste in umgekehrt chronologischer Reihenfolge veröffentlicht, wobei der neueste Beitrag oben auf der Seite erscheint. [ 14 ] Die Cochrane Collaboration verfügt über ein Verfahren für den Fall eines schwerwiegenden Fehlers, der in ihrer Geschichte bisher nur einmal aufgetreten ist. [ 15 ]

Nahrungsergänzungsmittel

Annual colloquia have been conducted by Cochrane since 1993. From 1994 onwards, Cochrane has maintained a database of posters and presentations of past colloquia. From 2009 onwards, Cochrane published the abstracts of those colloquia as supplements to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. From 2010 to 2016, an annual newsletter related to Cochrane methodology called Cochrane Methods (ISSN 2044-4702), was published as an annual supplement.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ ab"Access options for the Cochrane Library". Cochrane Library. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  2. ^"Cochrane Library". SAMW. 2026. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  3. ^"Contents available". Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  4. ^Grimes DA, Hou MY, Lopez LM, Nanda K (February 2008). "Do clinical experts rely on the Cochrane library?". Obstet Gynecol. 111 (2 Pt 1): 420–2. doi:10.1097/01.AOG.0000300558.51373.ae. PMID 18238981. S2CID 205384002.
  5. ^"Free access to Cochrane's COVID-19 pandemic resources guaranteed". Cochrane. The Cochrane Collaboration. 26 May 2020. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  6. ^"Cochrane Controlled Register of Trials (CENTRAL)". cochranelibrary.com. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  7. ^Dickersin, Kay; Manheimer, Eric; Wieland, Susan; Robinson, Karen A.; Lefebvre, Carol; McDonald, Steve; Central Development Group (March 2022). "Development of the Cochrane Collaboration's Central Register of Controlled Clinical Trials". Evaluation & the Health Professions. 25 (1): 38–64. doi:10.1177/016327870202500104. ISSN 0163-2787. PMID 11868444. S2CID 22331214.
  8. ^Banno M, Tsujimoto Y, Kataoka Y (2020). "Using the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials to identify clinical trial registration is insufficient: a cross-sectional study". BMC Med Res Methodol. 20 (1): 200. doi:10.1186/s12874-020-01083-y. PMC 7382846. PMID 32711471.
  9. ^ ab"About the Cochrane Library | Cochrane Library". cochranelibrary.com. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
  10. ^"Epistemonikos: Database of the best Evidence-Based Health Care". epistemonikos.org. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
  11. ^"Cochrane Library Training". Retrieved 10 December 2018.
  12. ^"Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews: 2021 Impact Factor". Cochrane Library. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  13. ^"Cochrane Library". MIAR: Information Matrix for the Analysis of Journals. University of Barcelona. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  14. ^The Cochrane Collaboration. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/comments-submission (accessed 10 December 2018)
  15. ^"Process in the event of serious errors in published Cochrane Reviews". community.cochrane.org. Retrieved 11 December 2018.
  16. ^"Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews: Supplements | Cochrane Library". cochranelibrary.com. Retrieved 11 December 2018.