Cochrane Library Podcasts

COVID-19 has spread quickly throughout the world, and Cochrane is preparing a series of rapid reviews of the evidence to help decision makers with their response. In this podcast, lead author, Jake Burns from the University of Munich in Germany describes the findings of our review of the effects of travel-related control measures, which was published in September 2020.

The Cochrane Neonatal Group has produced 400 Cochrane Reviews over the last two decades, updating these periodically as new evidence becomes available. In March 2020, they published the second update of their review of using sustained or standard inflation to help newborn babies who are struggling to breathe. We asked Dina Muscat Meng, Communications Consultant at Cochrane Sweden, to interview lead author and Director at Cochrane Sweden, Matteo Bruschettini, to tell us about the latest findings.

One technique that has been suggested to improve patients’ interaction with secondary care is to give them more control over the setting of their appointments. In April 2020, a new Cochrane Review of relevant research was published by a team of authors from the south west of England. We asked two of them to tell us about the findings in this podcast, beginning with Mark Perry from United Hospitals Plymouth and Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine and Dentistry, followed by Rebecca Whear from the University of Exeter’s Medical School.

Depression affects vast numbers of people around the world and our collection of relevant reviews was added to in July 2020 with a new review of the effects of a therapy known as behavioural activation. We asked the lead author, Eleonora Uphoff from the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group based at the University of York in the UK to tell us about the findings.

Alongside the Cochrane Reviews being prepared with a special focus on COVID-19, we have many reviews that provide useful information for policy makers during the pandemic. Among these is a new qualitative evidence synthesis from March 2020 on the use of mobile devices by health workers. In this podcast, Adriaan Odendaal speaks to lead author Willem Odendaal from the South African Medical Research Council about the review’s findings and its relevance to COVID-19.

Cochrane is producing a series of reviews to help decision makers respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, we published our first update of the review of convalescent plasma and hyperimmune immunoglobulin and we asked its lead author, Vanessa Piechotta from the University Hospital Cologne in Germany, to tell us what they found.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges for healthcare systems. Interventions which were routinely delivered before 2020 are now difficult to administer and it is important to identify the effectiveness of interventions that are available. One way to do this is through focused overviews of existing reviews and this was done in July 2020 for interventions for heavy menstrual bleeding. In this podcast, Dr Martin Hirsch from University College Hospitals talks to Dr James Duffy from King’s Fertility about the findings.

Dysmenorrhoea is the medical name given to painful uterine cramps of menstrual origin, which is also known as period pain. There are several Cochrane Reviews of ways that might ease this and the one investigating the benefits of exercise was updated in September 2019. Here’s one of the authors, Jane Chalmers from Western Sydney University in Australia, to tell us what it found.

Older people often have multiple chronic health problems, requiring multiple different medicines. However, this can be challenging and a new Cochrane Review in May 2020 examines the effectiveness of interventions that might help them. Here’s lead author, Amanda Cross from Monash University in Parkville Australia to tell us what the review found.

The Cochrane Heart Group have produced more than 200 reviews, covering a very wide range of conditions and interventions. In December 2019, they published a new review comparing different procedures for patients with severe aortic stenosis and we asked the lead author, Ahmed Kolkailah, from the Department of Medicine at Cook County Health in Chicago, USA to tell us about the condition and the review’s findings.