Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine

Future Research Projects

What proportion of Cochrane reviews of spontaneously remitting disease measure severity as well as duration of symptoms?

Supervisors

Professor Chris Del Mar
Dean of Health Sciences and Medicine

BACKGROUND

Cochrane reviews are published on the web (the Cochrane Library) and are available to all Australians free (through a national subscription). They attempt to provide a concentration of evidence about clinical questions for clinicians.

Measuring the output of spontaneously remitting (“self-limiting”) disease is difficult because the illness remits whatever the treatment. What should be measured? Theoretical work has shown that the ‘amount’ if illness is a product of both duration (measured in time) and severity.

The hypothesis is that time (easier to measure) is often used as the sole outcome measure without severity (because it is more difficult to measure). This will under-estimate any size effect.

AIMS OF THE PROJECT

To estimate the ratio between time and severity in a sample of spontaneously remitting diseases in one section of the Cochrane Library. We may limit the sample to an area of interest called acute respiratory infections where many illnesses are spontaneously remitting.

METHODS

We will sample some spontaneously remitting acute respiratory infections in one section of the Cochrane Library. These will be classified into the list of outcomes measured, and then whether duration and severity were used to scale the outcome.