Research questions for systematic reviews must be unambiguous from protocol stage

BMJ 1999;319:1265 ( 6 November )

Letters

Research questions for systematic reviews must be unambiguous from protocol stage

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ The systematic review of Walton et al aimed to "identify all comparative studies in which computers were used to helpdetermine the most appropriate drug dose,"¹ including studiesin which participants are "patients receiving drug therapy basedon advice from a computer."² According to this protocol, theauthors clearly should have included studies in which advice isgiven direct to patients, nurses, or intermediates, such as insoftware applications for diabetes management.³ Such studies,however, were not mentioned, even though insulin treatment indiabetes (having clear physiological indicators?) would have beena particularly good model for evaluating the usefulness of computeriseddrug advice, and contamination effects in the study design cannotoccur.

I would have expected a discussion of the apparent omission of such studies in which advice was given to other healthcareprofessionals or the patient. Instead, readers are confused bythe ill defined scope of this . . . [Full text of this article]

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Computer support for determining drug dose: systematic review and meta-analysis: Robert Walton, Susan Dovey, Emma Harvey, and Nick Freemantle
BMJ 1999 318: 984-990. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]