Key result
In 370 Cochrane systematic reviews on anesthesia and pain, over 40% recommended larger sample sizes, better outcome choices, improved study designs, and better choices of future interventions.
Why the study?
Cochrane systematic reviews include suggestions for improving future research, but the prevalence and time dynamics of different recommendations regarding anesthesia and pain had not been assessed.
Analysis of Cochrane reviews in anesthesia and pain reveals that most recommend larger sample sizes, better outcome choices, and improved study designs for future trials.
Trialists should prioritize larger samples, better outcomes/design and comparators in anesthesia/pain trials; extends prior meta-research with group-specific temporal trends.
Background: Cochrane systematic reviews (CSRs) have a section ‘Implications for research’ where authors make suggestions for improving future research. The authors of the present study assessed the prevalence and time dynamics of different recommendations in the CSRs about anesthesia and pain. Methods: The authors included all CSRs published by the Cochrane Anaesthesia Group and Cochrane Pain and Palliative Care Group before 17 July 2020. The authors analyzed recommendations for improving future research listed in the ‘Implications for research’ section of these CSRs and categorized recommendations for improvements. Results: They analyzed 370 reviews. Four categories of recommendations were present in more than 40% of the reviews. Most reviews recommended a larger sample size and better outcome choice, study design and choice of future intervention. These recommendations gradually increased in frequency in the Cochrane Pain and Palliative Care Group and mainly decreased in the Cochrane Anaesthesia Group. Conclusion: Recommendations from CSRs offer useful advice for trialists designing new trials.
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Runjić et al. (2022) studied Anesthesia and pain (n=370). Recommendations for improving future research was evaluated on Prevalence and time dynamics of different recommendations in the 'Implications for research' section. In 370 Cochrane systematic reviews on anesthesia and pain, over 40% recommended larger sample sizes, better outcome choices, improved study designs, and better choices of future interventions.
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