- Cochrane Review Groups should be encouraged to identify existing Intervention Reviews that compare multiple interventions and consider the feasibility of indirect comparisons and multiple treatments meta-analysis.
- When a new Intervention Review seeks to compare multiple interventions (i.e. to determine a preferential ordering of three or more competing interventions for a particular outcome), this should be made explicit in the protocol, and appropriate methods should be planned and implemented.
- Overviews of Reviews should be re-defined as reviews that integrate or synthesize (rather than summarize) evidence from existing systematic reviews, and should address a well-defined clinical question.
- Authors of an Overviews of Review should be encouraged to consider the implementation of indirect comparisons and multiple treatments meta-analysis.
- Broadening the search in an Overview of Reviews to include individual studies may be appropriate in some cases.
- Cochrane Review Groups should be encouraged to consult the Cochrane Comparing Multiple Interventions Methods Group when they start a review that aims explicitly to compare more than two interventions.
Other sections of this report:
Addressing multiple interventions in Cochrane Intervention Reviews
Addressing multiple interventions in Cochrane Overviews of Reviews
Clarification of the distinction between Intervention Reviews and Overviews of Reviews
Implications of Overviews for authors and editors of Intervention Reviews
A sequential approach for undertaking reviews that compare multiple-interventions
Role of the Cochrane Comparing Multiple Interventions Methods Group