Core outcome sets in women's and newborn health: a systematic review

What is it about?

Core outcome sets for women’s and newborn health: progress and recommended improvements. Recently, over eighty medical journals have come together to support the development of minimum data sets, termed core outcome sets, for research involving the health of women and their babies. Research studies testing new treatments often measure different outcomes. For example, when a new blood pressure medicine is being tested, one researcher may decide to measure the fall in blood pressure (an outcome) and another researcher may only measure medicine side effects (a different outcome). When complete, the results from both studies cannot be easily compared, contrasted, or combined, to see which treatments work best. This is a barrier to improving the care women and their babies receive. Researchers can overcome this barrier by developing a core outcome set of treatments outcomes that would be common to all future research. The use of a core outcome sets will allow the results of different studies testing new treatments to be easily compared, contrasted, and combined. In this review, we evaluated the progress of developing core outcome sets across different health conditions affecting the health of women and their babies.

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Why is it important?

Our investigation revealed that core outcome sets are being developed in many health conditions affecting the health of women and their babies. However, several areas are under-represented, including gynaecology, and only four outcome sets have been completed to date. We identified significant variation in the methods used to develop core outcome sets and recommend future core outcome sets should publish detailed protocols with reference to best practice guidelines. Widespread dissemination and future implementation of core outcome sets is required to eliminate the unnecessary and confusing inconsistency in outcome collection and reporting.

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