Quality of Cochrane reviews

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# Quality of Cochrane reviews is better than that of non-Cochrane reviews {#article-title-2} EDITOR—Olsen et al assessed a sample of Cochrane reviews from 1998 and highlighted some areas where improvement is possible.1 They found that 29% of reviews had major problems, including inappropriate methods and conclusions. As they say, improvement is still possible, but this figure nevertheless represents a major improvement on the quality of non-Cochrane reviews. We have reviewed the methods of 480 systematic reviews on the database of abstracts of reviews of effectiveness (DARE) at the University of York.2 3 Methodological details of the reviews were coded and checked by two reviewers working independently. We found that only half (52%) of the reviews had systematically assessed the validity of the included studies; that most systematic reviews were unlikely to be comprehensive (they had searched either one or two databases); and that overall only a quarter (26%) of reviews met three key methodological criteria (relating to a thorough …