ArticleBMC medicine2022
Evaluating agreement between bodies of evidence from randomized controlled trials and cohort studies in medical research: a meta-epidemiological study.
Article in BMC medicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Including randomized and non-randomized studies of interventions in evidence synthesis for harms: a meta-epidemiological study.BMC medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Concordance between target trial emulation and randomised controlled trials: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Pooled it
- Evaluating agreement between individual nutrition randomised controlled trials and cohort studies - a meta-epidemiological study.BMC medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Phenobarbital treatment of alcohol withdrawal in the emergency department: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Healthcare outcomes assessed with observational study designs compared with those assessed in randomized trials: a meta-epidemiological study.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Financial incentives for women's cervical, breast and colorectal cancer screening adherence: systematic review and meta-analysis.Preventive medicine reports · 2026Review
- Modifiable Lifestyle and Environmental Determinants of Ovarian Cancer Risk: Implications for Primary Prevention.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Association of labour epidural analgesia exposure with infant neurodevelopment: secondary analysis of a prospective cohort study.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Article
- The Role of Dietary Antioxidants, Food Supplements and Functional Foods for Energy Enhancement in Healthcare Professionals.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Evaluating agreement between evidence from randomised controlled trials and cohort studies in nutrition: a meta-research replication study.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Article
- Inclusion of nonrandomized studies of interventions in systematic reviews of interventions: updated guidance from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Effective Health Care program.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2022Article
- An empirical evaluation of the impact scenario of pooling bodies of evidence from randomized controlled trials and cohort studies in medical research.BMC medicine · 2022Article
- Mediterranean Diet and Cardiovascular Prevention: Why Analytical Observational Designs Do Support Causality and Not Only Associations.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRandomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies are the most common study design types used to assess the treatment effects of medical interventions. To evaluate the agreement of effect estimates between bodies of evidence (BoE) from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies and to identify factors associated with disagreement.
methodsSystematic reviews were published in the 13 medical journals with the highest impact factor identified through a MEDLINE search. BoE-pairs from RCTs and cohort studies with the same medical research question were included. We rated the similarity of PI/ECO (Population, Intervention/Exposure, Comparison, Outcome) between BoE from RCTs and cohort studies. The agreement of effect estimates across BoE was analyzed by pooling ratio of ratios (RoR) for binary outcomes and difference of mean differences for continuous outcomes. We performed subgroup analyses to explore factors associated with disagreements.
resultsOne hundred twenty-nine BoE pairs from 64 systematic reviews were included. PI/ECO-similarity degree was moderate: two BoE pairs were rated as "more or less identical"; 90 were rated as "similar but not identical" and 37 as only "broadly similar". For binary outcomes, the pooled RoR was 1.04 (95% CI 0.97-1.11) with considerable statistical heterogeneity. For continuous outcomes, differences were small. In subgroup analyses, degree of PI/ECO-similarity, type of intervention, and type of outcome, the pooled RoR indicated that on average, differences between both BoE were small. Subgroup analysis by degree of PI/ECO-similarity revealed high statistical heterogeneity and wide prediction intervals across PI/ECO-dissimilar BoE pairs.
conclusionsOn average, the pooled effect estimates between RCTs and cohort studies did not differ. Statistical heterogeneity and wide prediction intervals were mainly driven by PI/ECO-dissimilarities (i.e., clinical heterogeneity) and cohort studies. The potential influence of risk of bias and certainty of the evidence on differences of effect estimates between RCTs and cohort studies needs to be explored in upcoming meta-epidemiological studies.
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