3.4 Comparisons between cancer COSs and OG COSs
A previous study conducted by Elizabeth G about the minimum standard
assessments of cancer COSs showed that compliance rates for both four
standards in scope domain were greater than 95%, which was consistent
with OG COSs.19 The compliance rates for “Patients
with the condition or their representatives” were both less than 35%
in cancer COSs and OG COSs. Compared to OG COSs, the cancer COSs had the
same low compliance rate for all five standards in consensus process
standards ( <30%), but had lower compliance rates for “A
scoring process was described a priori” (OR=0.37, 95% CI: 0.14 - 0.97,
P=0.045) and “Criteria for including/dropping/adding outcomes were
described a priori” (OR=0.15, 95% CI:0.03 - 1.09, P=0.63). Further, no
significant difference was found in the compliance rates in other
criteria between cancer COSs and OG COSs. (Table 7).
- Discussion
- Summary of characteristics of included COSs
We identified 44 OG COSs from 26 research topics, with pelvic organ
prolapse, and maternity care being the most common. The first OG COSs
was published in 2000, and the number has gradually increased over the
years. Most OG COSs were published between 2017 2018. 91% of the
published COSs were published by corresponding authors from the
developed countries, and 86.4% of COSs were developed by more than
three authors. Identification of an inclusive list of outcomes from the
existing literature is critical to the development of a core outcome
set.7 The main data sources include systematic reviews
of published studies, reviews of published qualitative work, reviews of
criteria in the national audit data set, and interviews with key
stakeholders.16, 26 However, only three COSs
interviewed key stakeholders to understand their views of important
outcomes, and 16 % of COSs did not conduct systematic/literature review
to identify existing knowledge about outcomes. Given that the
comprehensiveness of the results of the systematic review is highly
dependent on the results of the underlying data, there is a need for
thorough verification of reported results. Unfortunately, only 34.1% of
COSs searched more than three databases. Nevertheless, it should be
noted that the systematic review of the results merely aggregates the
opinions of previous researchers. Therefore, it is crucial to
subsequently strike a consensus with the wider community of stakeholders
on the outcomes to be included in a COS. In the present study, only
twenty COSs (45.5%) conducted two or more rounds of Delphi survey,
40.9% of COSs used the consensus meeting method, and 36.4% of studies
used both the systematic review and consensus methods.