Posted on 9 March by Froeks Kamminga (Methods Liaison Officer)
We are pleased to announce an update to the online version of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions.
In this update the changes relate to Cochrane’s new Conflict of Interest policy and guidance related to searching and definitions as found in Chapter 4 and its accompanying Technical Supplement 1.
There is a corresponding update in the Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR) Standard R106, reflecting the Conflict of Interest policy, as well as an upgrade of Standard C56 (Ensuring results of outcomes included in ‘Summary of findings’ tables are assessed for risk of bias) from Highly desirable to Mandatory.
A summary of the changes is listed below:
• Chapter III: Section III.3.7, ‘Declarations of interest’ subsection updated to reflect Cochrane’s new conflict of interest policy.
• Chapter 1: Section 1.3, ‘Declarations of interest’ subsection updated to reflect Cochrane’s new conflict of interest policy.
• Chapter 4: Section 4.4.6 updated to clarify definitions for errata and retractions; two references added to the chapter; and small edits for formatting or readability edits that do not affect scientific content.
• Chapter 4 Supplementary 1: Section 3.6.3 clarification that the search is optimised for CINAHL Plus; Section 3.7 updates to Box 3.g. search strategy for CENTRAL; Section 3.9 updates on searching for retractions; and small edits for formatting or readability edits that do not affect scientific content.
• MECIR: R106 ‘Declarations of interest’, updated to reflect Cochrane’s new Conflict of interest policy.
• MECIR: C56 ‘Ensuring results of outcomes included in ‘Summary of findings’ tables are assessed for risk of bias’ is now mandatory.
See the Handbook versions and changes page as well as the MECIR versions and changes page for more details.
With the versioning update, the correct citation of the updated online Handbook is now:
Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions version 6.2 (updated February 2021). Cochrane, 2021.
All individual chapters have an updated citation as well, at the start of each chapter.
The citation for the print edition of the Handbook remains unchanged:
Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. 2nd Edition. Chichester (UK): John Wiley & Sons, 2019
If necessary, updates to the online Handbook and/or MECIR are released in February or August of each calendar year. For details on the process for updating the Handbook, please see here; for MECIR, please see here.
If you have any questions, please contact support@cochrane.org