Cochrane Mexico has launched an initiative to bring Cochrane Reviews into daily practice, in order to promote informed decision making. Dr. Giordano Pérez-Gaxiola, of Cochrane Mexico and The Pediatric Hospital of Sinaloa, who is leading the initiative, explains more below.

How did the idea arise?

For a while, we had been thinking about how to put Cochrane Reviews into the hands of clinicians in our hospital. Although we have been sharing Cochrane Mexico’s activities and Cochrane Reviews through social media and our website, we felt that there was something missing.

There are three big obstacles for our colleagues to even be able to consider Cochrane Reviews. Firstly, we don’t have a national subscription to the Cochrane Library in Mexico; meaning physicians can’t easily access full texts of the Review. When they do get hold of one, a second problem arises: the length of Cochrane Reviews. The last challenge is that for health professionals to be able to apply the findings, they need critical appraisal skills, which are not taught in all medical schools.

After following the work of Cochrane UK, notably their blogshots and Evidently Cochrane blog, and the Cochrane Child Health’s Cochrane Corners led by Ricardo Fernandes and published in Portuguese, we thought about making a hybrid product. 

What is Cochrane en la práctica diaria?

The literal translation is ‘Cochrane in daily practice’. It is an effort to bridge Cochrane reviews with our local context. Every month we publish a new post consisting of a blogshot and a structured abstract of a Cochrane review relevant to childcare, followed by a commentary written by a clinician. This highlights the objective of the Review, the main results, quality of the evidence and whether the Review findings are consistent with what we do in everyday practice. If they are not, the commentator may try to speculate why, or try to make a proposal for research or for implementation.

Example of a post, Nebulized epinephrine for croup in children

What has been the reaction to Cochrane en la práctica diaria?

Visits to cochrane.org coming from Mexico have been increasing for the last two years, and it looks that even more so in the last few months. That recent spike may or may not be because of the launch of this new feature, but comments from colleagues around the country have been very rewarding to hear. Physicians from our institution, Sinaloa Pediatric Hospital, wrote the commentaries for our first posts but we have since received interest from other institutions; we already published a commentary from a pediatrician in Irapuato, and we are exploring posts on other specialties with our partners from the Civil Hospital of Guadalajara.

All in all, I think we can say that it has been a successful launch. Hopefully, it will continue to grow and become a must-read for health professionals in Mexico.