Editorial and Publishing Policy Resource
Overview of date fields in Cochrane Reviews

There are several date fields associated with a Cochrane Review (including protocols and updates). These are described in Table 1. Detailed descriptions of several of the date fields are available in the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (section 3.3).

Table 1. Overview of date fields in Cochrane Reviews: description, source of date, and where the dates are displayed

  No. Type of date Description Added by who Displayed?
Unpublished CRs (in RevMan) CDSR: search results page CDSR: CR header CDSR: CR body PubMed
Other dates (ie not in ‘What’s new’ in RevMan) 1. Published online Date on which a new citation version of a review is published in the CDSR (specifically new and updated reviews) Publisher No Yesa Yes No Yes
2. Assessed as up-to-date See box below Editorial team/authors Yes No Yes Yes No
3. Date of search See section on 'Reporting search dates in Cochrane Reviews' Editorial team/authors Yes No No No No
4. Date next stage expected Protocols = date full review expected; Reviews = date next update expected Authors Yes No No No No
5. Protocol first published — Cochrane Yes No No Yes No
6. Review first published — Cochrane Yes No No Yes No
7. Last citation issue — Cochrane Yes No No No No
CDSR: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews; CR: Cochrane Review; RevMan: Review Manager.
a Different rules have been used in the past and that the dates in all Cochrane Reviews are being checked to ensure they match this rule.
Section info
Describe change
Revised to focus on date fields only. Title changed from "Dates and events in Cochrane Reviews" to reflect this change.
Change date
15 January 2015