Outside the box: Why are Cochrane reviews so boring?

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed.

1. Expert stakeholders on the role of qualitative research in World Health Organisation guidelines.Health policy and planning · 2026
   Article
2. Framework for evidence synthesis of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine systems incorporating context and complexity, illustrated by the example of homeopathy.Frontiers in public health · 2026
   Article
3. Contextually appropriate nurse staffing models: a realist review protocol.BMJ open · 2024
   Article
4. Questioning the ethics of evidence-based practice for Indigenous health and social settings in Australia.BMJ global health · 2022
   Review
5. Systematic vs. Narrative Reviews in Sport and Exercise Psychology: Is Either Approach Superior to the Other?Frontiers in psychology · 2021
   Article
6. Narrative reviews from a fraudulent author: reasons to retract.Intensive care medicine · 2019
   Article
7. Taking account of context in systematic reviews and guidelines considering a complexity perspective.BMJ global health · 2019
   Article
8. Time to challenge the spurious hierarchy of systematic over narrative reviews?European journal of clinical investigation · 2018
   Article
9. Bibliometrics of systematic reviews: analysis of citation rates and journal impact factors.Systematic reviews · 2013
   Article
10. Cochrane reviews: relevant more than ever.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2013
    Article
11. Series introduction.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2013
    Article
12. Outside the box: why are Cochrane reviews so boring?The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2012
    Article
13. Factors influencing citations to systematic reviews in skin diseases: a cross-sectional study through Web of Sciences and Scopus.Anais brasileiros de dermatologia
    Article

Corrections and comments

• Commented on by
  Outside the box: why are Cochrane reviews so boring?2012
• Commented on by
  Cochrane reviews: relevant more than ever.2013

Authors and funding

1 author.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

Indexed as