Trip Database Blog

One of Trip’s strengths is its amazing coverage of content. This ranges from secondary evidence such as systematic review and guidelines through to primary research (ie journal articles) and on to eTextbooks – with much in between.

One of these other areas, which gets relatively little attention, is ongoing clinical trials and ongoing systematic reviews

Ongoing systematic reviews: We include all the ongoing systematic reviews included in PROSPERO; at the time of writing that was over 40,000 reviews.

Ongoing clinical trials: We link to all the trials in ClinicalTrials.gov; at the time of writing that was nearly 300,000 separate trials. NOTE: this is a ‘Pro’ only feature.

These can be specifically looked for via the Trip filtering system on the right-hand side of the results page:

Do your search and click on the link of interest – it really is that simple!

One really important thing to consider, which was highlighted in this NEJM article is:

“As of October 2016, ClinicalTrials.gov contained more than 227,000 records, and nearly 23,000 of those records had posted results entries; we estimate that results are published in the literature for only half those trials.”

If you’re interested in a broad coverage of the literature the content on clinicaltrials.gov includes unpublished data. Find it easily via Trip.

On the Rapid-Reviews blog I highlighted the decision to create the Trip Rapid Review System (TRRS).  It got me thinking that it’s both about RRs and Trip – hence me mirroring this new post below. I suspect there are different audiences for each blog!

In thinking about the TRRS I see it being a multi-step process supported, where possible, with technology to automate the process as much as possible.  The steps are as follows:

• Question setting/clarification, including the extraction of search terms.
• Search and document selection, including various techniques to unearth articles that may have been missed.
• Data extraction to produce an evidence table.
• Narrative review including a conclusion or clinical bottom line (to be decided).
• Review finalisation. All the above parts pulled together to produce an easy to read rapid review.
• Publication and peer review.

Over time I will expand on each step, highlighting how it could work. It’s good for me to do as I need to think through all the issues and it gives readers the opportunity to give feedback.