The Cochrane Empty Review Project Consensus Meeting:

See the project website. www.empty-reviews.org

On Thursday, 16 June 2011, the Cochrane Empty Review Project led by Dr Paul Montgomery, Reader in Psycho-Social Intervention and Co-Director of the Centre for Evidence Based Intervention is convening a meeting of Cochrane Collaboration contributors to consider ways in which so-called 'empty reviews' are reported in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. These are reviews which lack included studies. In some cases these reviews say very little regarding the evidence concerning an intervention as might be expected, however in other cases other evidence is presented. These issues require investigation and then guidance. The format and agenda of the consensus meeting will follow that suggested by Moher et al. (2010) and used in the development of the CONSORT statement. The ultimate objective of The Cochrane Empty Review Project Consensus Meeting will be to produce either general guidance or specific guidelines for the reporting of empty reviews.

Provided below are some of the pre-meeting materials intended to inform the foundational discussion. The literature review presented below is a draft early output from the study.

• The Meeting Agenda;
• • Relevant excerpts from The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Intervention;
  • A Literature Review and Descriptive Summary of Empty Reviews in The CDSR;