Quality-assessed reviews of health care interventions and the database of abstracts of reviews of effectiveness (DARE)

Objectives: Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE) (http: //www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/) at the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination provides a unique international resource of structured summaries of qualit y-assessed reviews of health care interventions. These reviews have been id entified from searches of electronic databases and by hand-searching journa ls. This paper describes and summarizes the DARE database, including the to pic areas covered and the review methods used. Methods: The first 480 structured abstracts on the DARE database were summa rized. Data were extracted from each database field and coded for analysis. Results: Most of the systematic reviews investigated the effectiveness of t reatments: 54% investigated the effectiveness of medical therapies, and 10% assessed surgical interventions. Around two-thirds used meta-analytic meth ods to combine primary studies. The quality of the reviews was variable, wi th just over half of the reviews (52%, n = 251) having systematically asses sed the validity of the included primary studies. Narrative reviews were mo re likely than meta-analyses to reach negative conclusions (42% vs. 25%, p =.0001). The 21 reviews that reported drug company funding were more likely to reach positive conclusions (81% vs. 66%, p =.15). Conclusion: The DARE database is a valuable source of quality-assessed syst ematic reviews, and is free and easily accessible. It provides a valuable o nline rt source to help in filtering out poorer quality reviews when assess ing the effectiveness of health technologies.