Impact of Adding a Limitation Section in Abstract of Systematic Review

Not Applicable

Completed

Interventions: Behavioral: interpretation of the abstract of the systematic review

Brief Summary: Objective: The investigators aim to evaluate the impact of a adding a " limitations " section in systematic review's abstract on result's interpretation by readers Design: randomized controlled trial with two parallel arms. Participants will be invited to participate in an online survey.

Participants: Eligible participants are corresponding authors of clinical trials published between 2010 and 2012 and referenced in Medline.

Intervention: The investigators will evaluate the impact of the presence of a " limitations " section in abstract of systematic review with meta- analysis. The investigators selected abstracts of meta-analysis from a sample.

Selected abstract will be standardised and the treatment's name hidden. Two groups of abstract will be presented as follow: 1) abstract without " limitations " section 2) abstract with " limitations " section. The " limitations " section will be written by authors and will briefly describe the risk of bias of included studies.

Selected participant are invited by e-mail to answer the survey. After reading one abstract from his/her group of randomisation they are invited to answer 5 questions about their interpretation of the results.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

corresponding authors of clinical trail indexed in pubmed with email address available

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
abstract with limitation section added	interpretation of the abstract of the systematic review	we add a limitation section in each selected abstract, the limitation section will focus on the quality of included studies.
abstract without limitation section	interpretation of the abstract of the systematic review	We selected 30 abstracts with a conclusion in favour the experimental treatment from a sample of systematic reviews that evaluate the effect of health care intervention.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Confidence in the Results of the Systematic Review	1 month	we ask participants: "how confident are you in the results of this study?", with the choice of answer based on a 10 points Likert scale (score from 0, not at all confident, to 10, very confident )

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
The Rigor of the Systematic Review	1 month	We ask participants: "Do you think that this systematic review was conducted rigorously?" with the choice of answer based on a 10 points Likert scale from 0, not at all confident, to 10, very confident
Influence of Results on Clinical Practice	1 month	We ask participants: "How confident are you that the results of this study could influence your clinical practice?" with the choice of answer based on a 10 points Likert scale from 0, not at all confident, to 10, very confident
Confidence With the Validity of the Conclusions	1 month	We ask participants: - "How confident are you in the validity of the conclusions of this study?" with the choice of answer based on a 10 points Likert scale from 0, not at all confident, to 10, very confident
Beneficial Effect of the Experimental Intervention	1 month	We ask participants: - "How confident are you that the intervention "A" could be of benefit to patients?" with the choice of answer based on a 10 points Likert scale from 0, not at all confident, to 10, very confident