Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Venous Thromboembolism Risk Assessment Models in Hospitalized Medical Patients

Venous thromboembolism ("VTE" including pulmonary embolism "PE" and deep venous thrombosis "DVT") is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Only about half of eligible hospitalized medical patients receive appropriate thromboprophylaxis. Understanding VTE risk factors predictive of VTE among hospitalized medical patients may promote superior thromboprophylaxis. To date a systematic review of VTE risk assessment strategies among hospitalized medical patients, and a meta-analysis reporting the rate of VTE among patient groups at varying levels of risk for VTE does not exist.

The investigators will use the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses to develop this systematic review and meta-analysis.

The investigators will perform a systematic review of the literature and report VTE risk assessment models that have been derived and validated among hospitalized medical patients. The investigators will perform a meta-analysis of studies that report a rate of VTE among patients identified as being at elevated risk for VTE and those that are not. The investigators pre-specify that they are going to analyze the prospective and retrospective studies captured by the literature search in two ways. First, the investigators will perform an analysis that groups both prospective and retrospective studies together. The investigators will also perform an analysis that separates out the prospective and retrospective studies. While this will decrease our sample size (and thus power), this approach may allow us to identify any bias or confounding present due to the retrospective study design and then control for it. Notably confirmation that both retrospective and prospective studies identified the same findings would enhance the clinical usefulness of our findings.