RefTraK
Stroke
Group of the Cochrane Collaboration.
This is an extremely complex relational database system which produces a comprehensive report which
can be sent to the Reviewers in the Stroke Group advising them which
Trials or
Studies
should be considered when preparing their
Systematic
Reviews of effective health care for stroke patients.
The application stores bibliographic details on all the known References to Studies involving
stroke patients. From these References, records are created which identify each of the Studies.
Links
are then established which enable all References for a specified Study to be retrieved.
Further links are made between the Study and the
Intervention.
Search facilities allow the user to select a related group of Interventions and associate them to a particular Systematic Review. It is now possible to select a Review and the system will list all the individual References for each Study relevant to the chosen Review. Internal tracking mechanisms allow the filtering out of items previously notified to the reviewer.
Much of the development work centred around the Intervention coding and classification. A hierarchical system which can be extended by the users at any level ensures the system can grow as new treatments become available. Also the search strategy used to retrieve the Interventions is stored as text and linked to the Review ensuring that any new Study and Reference records are automatically included in future reports.
Work on RefTraK is being continued by the Stroke Group.