Cochrane highlights: disseminating Cochrane Reviews through a Brazilian international open access journal

ID: 

213

Session: 

Poster session 2

Date: 

Monday 17 September 2018 - 12:30 to 14:00

All authors in correct order:

Riera R1, Pacheco RL1, Pachito DV1, Martimbianco ALC1, Latorraca COC1, Atallah AN1
1 Cochrane Brazil, Brazil
Presenting author and contact person

Presenting author:

Rafael Pacheco

Contact person:

Rachel Riera
Abstract text
Background: The São Paulo Medical Journal/Evidence for Health Care (SPMJ), which has been published by the Associação Paulista de Medicina since 1932, is one of the oldest medical publications in Brazil. Its articles are indexed in Medline, LILACS, SciELO, Science Citation Index Expanded, Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition (ISI) (impact factor 0.955) and EBSCO publishing. Its bimonthly editions are open access and available online. We consider this journal to be a useful tool for disseminating Cochrane Reviews, by means of concise summaries of their main findings.

Objectives: To promote the dissemination and facilitate the use of Cochrane Reviews among health professionals.

Methods: After a formal partnership between the SPMJ and Cochrane, since January 2017 the SPMJ has been publishing a section entitled 'Cochrane Highlights', supported by Cochrane Brazil. It comprises the production of brief summaries in English of abstracts from Cochrane Reviews on specific themes, which are published alongside the bimonthly editions of SPMJ.

Results: From its inception, the section has addressed eight different themes for summaries: 1) focused on a single intervention and its use for different clinical situations (vitamin D and probiotics), 2) focused on the management of a single clinical situation and different interventions available for specific health conditions (diabetic retinopathy, urinary incontinence for women, dementia, autism spectrum disorders, cardiac arrest) or 3) focused on the clinical effectiveness of screening and diagnostic tests (cancer). The number of Cochrane abstracts presented in each article has ranged from nine (cardiac arrest) to 27 (vitamin D). All summaries are followed by a link to the full-text review.

Conclusions: This initiative seems to be a useful tool for disseminating Cochrane Reviews among health professionals who are not familiar with Cochrane methods and do not have enough time to read a full Cochrane review. This could also be adapted for consumers through the translation of plain language summaries.

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: This initiative may improve dissemination, understanding and use of evidence provided by Cochrane Reviews.

Relevance to patients and consumers: 

This initiative may improve dissemination, understanding and using of evidences provided by Cochrane Reviews.