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QUALITY-ASSESSED REVIEWS OF HEALTH CARE INTERVENTIONS AND THE DATABASE OF ABSTRACTS OF REVIEWS OF EFFECTIVENESS (DARE)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Mark Petticrew
Affiliation:
NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (NHS CRD) for the NHS CRD Review, Dissemination, and Information Teams
Fujian Song
Affiliation:
NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (NHS CRD) for the NHS CRD Review, Dissemination, and Information Teams
Paul Wilson
Affiliation:
NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (NHS CRD) for the NHS CRD Review, Dissemination, and Information Teams
Kath Wright
Affiliation:
NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (NHS CRD) for the NHS CRD Review, Dissemination, and Information Teams
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Abstract

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Objectives: Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE) (http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/) at the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination provides a unique international resource of structured summaries of quality-assessed reviews of health care interventions. These reviews have been identified from searches of electronic databases and by hand-searching journals. This paper describes and summarizes the DARE database, including the topic areas covered and the review methods used.

Methods: The first 480 structured abstracts on the DARE database were summarized. Data were extracted from each database field and coded for analysis.

Results: Most of the systematic reviews investigated the effectiveness of treatments: 54% investigated the effectiveness of medical therapies, and 10% assessed surgical interventions. Around two-thirds used meta-analytic methods to combine primary studies. The quality of the reviews was variable, with just over half of the reviews (52%, n = 251) having systematically assessed the validity of the included primary studies. Narrative reviews were more likely than meta-analyses to reach negative conclusions (42% vs. 25%, p = .0001). The 21 reviews that reported drug company funding were more likely to reach positive conclusions (81% vs. 66%, p = .15).

Conclusion: The DARE database is a valuable source of quality-assessed systematic reviews, and is free and easily accessible. It provides a valuable online resource to help in filtering out poorer quality reviews when assessing the effectiveness of health technologies.

Type
GENERAL ESSAYS
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press