EROS: a new software for early stage of systematic reviews

CIAPPONI, AGUSTÍN; GLUJOVSKY, D; BARDACH, ARIEL; GARCIA MARTÍ, SEBASTIAN; COMANDE, D

Conferencia; ISPOR 3rd Latin America Conference; 2011

Introduction Sometimes, the workload involved in performing a sound systematic review (SR) is underestimated. The screening and quality assessment of studies, usually done by pairs of independent reviewers, is not only time-consuming, but it also is complicated, tiresome, and prone to mistakes. A computer-software designed to cope with the initial phases of a SR would be of great help. There is a generalized lack of development in this regard, and the available options are not very accessible or affordable. The objective of this study is to show the advances in the development of EROS (Early Review Organizing Software), a web-based software to serve in the initial phases of a SR process.Methods We developed an online software that helps in performing the first stages of a SR: importation of citation from a reference manager software or directly after a search in several medical electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, LILACS, etc), screening by title/abstract, first agreement, uploading of full-text, screening by full-text (tracking exclusion reasons), quality assessment (second and third agreement respectively), and distribution of full-text for data collection.Results EROS is currently being used in the simultaneous conduction of 10 systematic reviews requested to IECS (4-8 reviewers, 1 librarian and 240- 1550 cites per SR).  Its main characteristics are: a) ability to manage multiple projects; b) differentiation of roles assigned to reviewers, administrators and librarians; c) multi-language environment in each review; d) adequate, equitable and timely delivery of full-texts for evaluation and data abstraction; e) real-time tracking of the whole process for each role; f) building the study flowchart; g) possibility to work simultaneously in different SR?s stages; h) configurable inclusion/exclusion criteria and other relevant features.Conclusion A computerized SR tool in the initial phases like EROS saves time, reduces workload for each involved role, and probably enhances SR?s methodological quality.