Online dissemination of Cochrane reviews on digital health technologies: a cross-sectional study

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Abstract

Background

This cross-sectional study investigated the online dissemination of Cochrane reviews on digital health technologies.

Methods

We searched the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews from inception up to May 2023. Cochrane reviews with any population (P), intervention or concept supported by any digital technology (I), any or no comparison (C), and any health outcome (O) were included. Data on review characteristics (bibliographic information, PICO, and evidence quality) and dissemination strategies were extracted and processed. Dissemination was assessed using review information on the Cochrane website and Altmetric data that trace the mentions of academic publications in nonacademic online channels. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression analysis.

Results

Out of 170 records identified in the search, 100 Cochrane reviews, published between 2005 and 2023, were included. The reviews focused on consumers (e.g. patients, n = 86), people of any age ( n = 44), and clinical populations ( n = 68). All reviews addressed interventions or concepts supported by digital technologies with any devices ( n = 73), mobile devices ( n = 17), or computers ( n = 10). The outcomes focused on disease treatment ( n = 56), health promotion and disease prevention ( n = 27), or management of care delivery ( n = 17). All reviews included 1–132 studies, and half included 1–10 studies. Meta-analysis was performed in 69 reviews, and certainty of evidence was rated as high or moderate for at least one outcome in 46 reviews.

In agreement with the Cochrane guidelines, all reviews had a plain language summary (PLS) that was available in 3–14 languages. The reviews were disseminated (i.e. mentioned online) predominantly via X/Twitter ( n = 99) and Facebook ( n = 69). Overall, 51 reviews were mentioned in up to 25% and 49 reviews in 5% of all research outputs traced by Altmetric data. Dissemination (i.e. higher Altmetric scores) was associated with bibliographic review characteristics (i.e. earlier publication year and PLS available in more languages), but not with evidence quality (i.e. certainty of evidence rating, number of studies, or meta-analysis performed in review).

Conclusions

Online attention towards Cochrane reviews on digital health technologies is high. Dissemination is higher for older reviews and reviews with more PLS translations. Measures are required to improve dissemination of Cochrane reviews based on evidence quality.

Systematic review registration

The study was prospectively registered at the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/mpw8u/).

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13643-024-02557-6.

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Most cited references 35

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Digital technologies in the public-health response to COVID-19

Jobie Budd, Benjamin S. Miller, Erin M. Manning … (2020)

Digital technologies are being harnessed to support the public-health response to COVID-19 worldwide, including population surveillance, case identification, contact tracing and evaluation of interventions on the basis of mobility data and communication with the public. These rapid responses leverage billions of mobile phones, large online datasets, connected devices, relatively low-cost computing resources and advances in machine learning and natural language processing. This Review aims to capture the breadth of digital innovations for the public-health response to COVID-19 worldwide and their limitations, and barriers to their implementation, including legal, ethical and privacy barriers, as well as organizational and workforce barriers. The future of public health is likely to become increasingly digital, and we review the need for the alignment of international strategies for the regulation, evaluation and use of digital technologies to strengthen pandemic management, and future preparedness for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Karina Karolina De Santis:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7647-6767

desantis@leibniz-bips.de

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Syst Rev

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Syst Rev

Title: Systematic Reviews

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 2046-4053

Publication date (Electronic): 15 May 2024

Publication date PMC-release: 15 May 2024

Publication date Collection: 2024

Volume: 13

Electronic Location Identifier: 133

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Prevention and Evaluation, Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology — BIPS, ( https://ror.org/02c22vc57) Bremen, 28359 Germany

[2 ]Department for Evidence-Based Medicine and Evaluation, University for Continuing Education Krems, ( https://ror.org/03ef4a036) Krems, Austria

[3 ]Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, ( https://ror.org/00eae9z71) Callaghan, NSW Australia

[4 ]Department of Health Services Research, Faculty 11 Human and Health Sciences, University of Bremen, ( https://ror.org/04ers2y35) Bremen, Germany

Author information

Karina Karolina De Santis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7647-6767

Article

Publisher ID: 2557

DOI: 10.1186/s13643-024-02557-6

PMC ID: 11095012

PubMed ID: 38750593

SO-VID: 75fe04bb-40c1-4f62-ace4-8cc746d8f010

License:

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 29 February 2024

Date accepted : 5 May 2024

Funding

Funded by: Leibniz-Institut für Präventionsforschung und Epidemiologie – BIPS GmbH (5712)

Open Access :

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: cochrane,review,digital technology,healthcare,public health,cross-sectional,dissemination,knowledge translation,altmetric score

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: cochrane, review, digital technology, healthcare, public health, cross-sectional, dissemination, knowledge translation, altmetric score

Online dissemination of Cochrane reviews on digital health technologies: a cross-sectional study

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Systematic review registration

Supplementary Information

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PLOS Global Public Health

Most cited references 35

The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies.

The answer is 17 years, what is the question: understanding time lags in translational research

Digital technologies in the public-health response to COVID-19

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