The time to act is now: pseudo-systematic review

Nathan Ford; Grania Brigden; Tom Ellman; Edward J Mills

doi:10.1136/bmj.m4143

The time to act is now: pseudo-systematic review

BMJ. 2020 Dec 10:371:m4143. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m4143.

Authors

Nathan Ford¹, Grania Brigden², Tom Ellman³, Edward J Mills⁴

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research, School of Public Health, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, South Africa.
² Department of Tuberculosis, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Geneva, Switzerland.
³ South African Medical Unit, Médecins Sans Frontières, Cape Town, South Africa.
⁴ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

Abstract

Objective: To identify any medical or public health rationale for claims that the time to act is now.

Design: Pseudo-systematic review.

Data sources: PubMed.

Study selection: Studies that included the claim "time is now" in the title, with or without exclamation marks. No language or date restriction was applied.

Results: 512 articles were included for review. No relationship was identified between time to act and disease burden, severity, or specialty. Claims that the time to act was Christmas were almost entirely without basis. A clustering of claims that it is time to act in the first quarter of the year suggested a possible association with New Year's resolutions.

Conclusions: Now is as good a time as any.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Humans
Systematic Reviews as Topic
Time
Time-to-Treatment*