Searching the EPOC Register
The Register is not public. Please contact the Trials Search Co-ordinator, Ottawa to request a search. EPOC Review authors are our priority, but other requests will be accomodated whenever possible.
About the EPOC Register of Studies
The EPOC Register consists of over 7000 studies (as of August 2010). Of these, 5600+ are randomized or controlled trials (RCT/CCT), 680+ are interrupted time series (ITS), and 900+ are controlled before and after (CBA) study designs. The subject matter of these studies conform to our interests in interventions to improve the delivery,organisation and practice of healthcare--for more detail see Scope of Our Work.
The Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group is unique from many other Cochrane groups in two ways: we accept study designs other than RCT/CCT and our research focus is in an area that is growing but is ill defined in biomedical literature. Of these differences, both offer challenges.
Study Design Issues : Searching for randomised controlled trials (RCT) is relatively straightforward process thanks to the existence of tested methodological filters such as those in the Cochrane Handbook 6.4.11.1. Identifying alternative study types such as CBA, ITS and quasi-experimental designs is not, however, as easy. The reason for this is that there are not yet gold standard methodological filters for these study designs. The result is that EPOC has been working, since its inception, to devise filters to capture these study designs; this work is ongoing.
Research Focus Issues: Interventions to improve the organisation, delivery or practice of health care can range from investigating novel communication methods between patient and physician/nurse--video conferencing or telemedicine, to reducing antibiotic use by changing the prescribing habits of physicians, to decreasing noscomial infections in hospitals by encouraging hand washing, to augmenting chronic disease management by using interdisciplinary professional teams. In these examples, both the intervention and situation or context are often vaguely defined in the literature, e.g. are poorly represented in indexing terms such as MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) used in Medline/PubMed databases and in keyword terminology used by authors. This lack of definition is different from clinical areas where indications such as broken hips, heart failure, high cholesterol, etc. and interventions such as surgery, drug therapies, diet restrictions, etc. are generally well defined by MeSH and in common language used by experts in the field.
The Bottom Line
Search methods for the EPOC Register and for EPOC Systematic Reviews are complicated. Search strategies for the Register have been evolving since our inception and continue to do so. Similarly, search methods for EPOC Reviews are in flux and must be customized to the topic of the review. A one size fits all strategy will not work for all topics.
We are currently testing methodological filters for non-RCT/CCT study designs and, with a test database of approximately 2000 non-RCT studies, we hope eventually to provide filters which will assist researchers in identifying non-RCT studies. Search strategies to identify interventions are also being adapted. Until then, please feel free to contact the Trials Search Co-ordinator for advice on search strategies for EPOC topics. As stated above, priority is given to EPOC’s review authors, but other requests will be considered.