Background: Massive duplication of effort occurs when researchers all over the world undertake extensive searches\r\nfor randomized controlled trials when preparing systematic reviews, when developing evidence-based guidelines\r\nand when applying for research funding for eczema treatments. Such duplication wastes valuable resources.\r\nSearching for randomized controlled trials of eczema is a laborious task involving scrutiny of thousands of\r\nindividual references from diverse electronic databases in order to obtain a few papers of interest. Clinicians and\r\npatients who wish to find out more about a particular treatment are at risk of missing the relevant evidence if they\r\nare not trained in electronic bibliographic searching. Systematic reviews cannot be relied upon to comprehensively\r\ninform current optimal eczema treatments due to incomplete coverage and because many may be out of date.\r\nAn international, publically available and comprehensive resource which brings together all randomized controlled\r\ntrials on eczema treatment using a highly sensitive search has the potential to release more filtered knowledge\r\nabout patient care to those who need it most and to significantly shorten the duration and costs of many clinical\r\neczema research and guideline projects.\r\nDescription: The Global Resource of EczemA Trials brings together information on all randomized controlled trials\r\nof eczema treatments published from the beginning of 2000 up to the end of 2010 and will be updated every\r\nmonth.\r\nWe searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials in The Cochrane Library and the Cochrane Skin\r\nGroup Specialised Register, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, AMED and CINHAL databases. We included 268 RCTs (24th\r\nMarch 2011) covering over 70 different treatment interventions.\r\nThe structure of the Global Resource of Eczema Trials allows the user as much, or as little, specificity when\r\nretrieving information on trials as they wish, in an easy to use format. For each trial, the database gives the citation\r\nfor the published report and also provides enough information to enable a user to decide whether the trial is\r\nworth further scrutiny.\r\nConclusions: The Global Resource of Eczema Trials has been created to facilitate knowledge mobilization into\r\nhealthcare and to reduce wastage of research time through unnecessary duplication. The collective time saved by\r\nresearch groups around the world can now be used to make strides in optimising the treatment of eczema, in order to\r\nfurther benefit people with eczema. The database can be accessed free of charge at http://www.greatdatabase.org.uk
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