How Zheln Is Replacing PubMed

Zhelnov P. How Zheln is replacing PubMed. Zheln. 2020 Dec 16;51(1):s26e1. URI: https://zheln.com/summary/2020/12/16/1/.

Who Is Zheln For?

Everyone

Watch thorough and concise video-reviews of new important health research on YouTube

Health Care Practitioners

Stay up to date with published systematic reviews in your AMA medical specialty

Academic Researchers

Explore methods used to power this affiliation-free, crowdfunded, living open evidence synthesis

What Exactly Is Zheln?

• There are 789 recent systematic review records on Zheln currently. They are added daily, most of them were published this fall, and each of them is counting as a true positive by Shojania & Bero 2001 criteria for systematic reviews.
• These records came from my Replicated Systematic Subset PubMed query retrieving most of all systematic reviews being published in peer-reviewed international health care journals.
• I’m also tagging the records with AMA specialty tags taken from the AMA Physician Masterfile specialty list, so you can browse appraisals by AMA Specialty.
• Otherwise, you can watch select Zheln records on the YouTube channel for Zheln. Since recently, I have started to publish critical appraisal videos daily.
• Read the full-featured academic protocol for Zheln here for free: DOI 10.31222/osf.io/y2nrb. I also submitted it for PROSPERO registration but was told processing the submission might take up to three months due to very high demand.
• I welcome wide discussion and feedback of any sort very much, so please do engage me on Twitter or elsewhere!

Zheln Flow Diagram

This is the Zheln flow diagram. It shows the flow of systematic reviews on Zheln since the last summary post.

The flow diagram is modified from the PRISMA 2020 Statement preprint by Matthew Page et al. and the SRflowdiagram tool by Neal Haddaway. I am deeply grateful to the original authors!

List of Included Studies

As a rule, I select a review for a critical appraisal with replication when the topic covered is likely to have a very large practice impact with regard either to both global health care workers and the public or to the minorities. COVID-19 publications are not selected. However, crowdfunding an appraisal is possible.

Some of the appraisals are already available as videos on YouTube, so click the button next to the appraisal heading to watch them!

1. New Vegetarian Diets & Maternal Health
2. Empathy Training in Health Care #2
3. Oceans & Human Health in Europe
4. Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Female or Male Infertility
5. Sedentary Time & All-Cause Mortality
6. Maintenance of Abstinence from Alcohol in Primary Care
7. WHO Sedentary Behavior Guidelines
8. WHO Sedentary Behavior Guidelines #2
9. WHO Sedentary Behavior Guidelines #3
10. WHO Sedentary Behavior Guidelines #4
11. Preventing Foot Ulceration in Diabetes
12. Prevention of Antibiotic-Associated Diarrhea in Adults
13. International Consensus Statement on Rhinology and Allergy: Rhinosinusitis
14. Literacy in Omics Sciences
15. Mindfullness Mobile Apps in Europe
16. Transcranial AC Stimulation
17. Equity in Virtual Health Care
18. USPSTF on Pediatric HTN Screening
19. Respiratory Virus Sampling
20. Climate Change & Pregnancy AEs
21. Supplements for Pregnancy HTN
22. VA/DoD Low Back Pain Guideline
23. Meds for (Meth)amphetamine Use
24. Sport After Youth Trauma
25. Lifestyle & Prostate Cancer
26. Martial Arts & Mental Health
27. Compassion for Self-Esteem
28. E-Cigs & Metabolic Syndrome
29. Biodegradation of Plastics
30. Schoolbag Weight & Back Pain
31. Massive Diabetes Prevention
32. Attitudes & Eating Behavior
33. What is the effect of physical exercise on executive function in adults older than 55 years of age?
34. What are the therapeutic options for Gulf War Illness?
35. How important the concept of homesickness is?
36. What are the fetal outcomes of opioid detoxification in pregnancy?
37. What are the outcomes of acetaminophen v. ibuprofen for fever or pain in children under two years old?
38. Is quality and safety of hospital care different in outlying patients?
39. How effective is a combination of alpha-blockers and PDE5-inhibitors for lower urinary tract symptoms?
40. Is it good and safe to allow mother and baby skin-to-skin contact during a cesarian?
41. What interventions are there to manage diabetes in homeless adults?
42. What use are mindfulness-based interventions for mental symptoms of Parkinson’s disease?
43. What progress has been made to date in terms of universal influenza vaccines?
44. How effective are interventions to improve antibiotic-prescription behavior among PCPs?
45. What are the reports of practical use of national guidelines on movement in Canada and similar countries?
46. What evidence is there to support active break policies in elementary schools?
47. What is known regarding policy to address pediatric suicidality?
48. How important is postural control in Down syndrome?
49. What works for at-risk mental states?
50. What is the effect of ticagrelor monotherapy after PCI?
51. How good is social accountability for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health?
52. What is in the American Psychiatric Association guideline on schizophrenia?
53. Crowdfunded How effective are tooth decay prevention measures in children six years old or younger?
54. How good is C-reactive protein measurement with regard to health outcomes?
55. What is the association between sugar-free gum and dental caries?
56. How big is the impact of perinatal care systems on infant mortality?
57. How effective is empathy training in health care education?
58. What are the current therapeutic applications of human mesenchymal stem cells?
59. How useful is patient blood management to improve outcomes of major surgery?
60. What is the effectiveness of eHealth interventions for improving public health?
61. What is the risk of congenital malformations associated with beta-blocker use in early pregnancy?
62. How effective behavioral weight-loss interventions in diabetes are?

Reports Wanted

I had selected these systematic reviews for a critical appraisal with replication, but their reports were unavailable to me. Please contact me if you wish to help procuring them.

1. New Residential Greenness & Birth Outcomes
2. Calcium and Vitamin D Supplementation for Osteoporosis in Postmenopausal Women
3. Ethics of Familial Genetic Testing
4. How good is the uptake of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist in low- and middle-income countries?
5. What are the outcome predictors of Parent Management Training for child conduct problems?
6. What is the role of a Registered Dietitian in weight management?
7. How effective are anti-amyloid-β drugs for Alzheimer’s disease?
8. How is homelessness experienced by transgender people?
9. How useful is physical exercise for people living with breast cancer?

What’s Next?

Get back for the next summary post on Sat, Dec 19

•  Watch appraisals of important reviews
•  Browse reviews by medical specialty
•  Read the academic protocol for Zheln

Making of Zheln

• Running Zheln all alone is very hard. As a result, I miss some appraisal days, usually don’t appraise 100% of daily records, and the amount of time I spend on Zheln activities has varied.
• So, in this regard, I have chosen to follow the Okazaki-fragments (or conveyor-belt) strategy: whenever I miss any record-processing, I usually do not go back but proceed further. These records may still be processed but only after all current work is done. I believe this is most appropriate for Zheln, due to its very living nature and in order to achieve steady current processing.
• Also, record-screening and specialty-tagging are very resource- and time-intensive and plain boring, while, at the same time, they could perfectly be automated using artificial neural networks.
• As soon as I crowd-raise enough money to keep Zheln running ($600/mo), I will start integrating machine learning into record-screening and specialty-tagging. This will involve discussions with machine learning specialists in evidence synthesis, such as Iain Marshall, and will allow stable processing of 100% records.
• As to the amount of time I spend on Zheln, this is the best I can currently do due to the health restrictions I wrote about earlier.

Help Crowdfund Zheln

Zheln Is Supported by Crowdfunding Only

Running Zheln takes most of my work capacity. I’ve managed to stay off other jobs for now but will be forced to find another job unless crowdfunded by the end of this year.

In other words, you can’t be sure Zheln isn’t suspended in 2021 if you avoid funding it. But if you donate, I pledge to keep running Zheln in recognition of your support.

If you want Zheln to live on, please use one of these options:

Subscribe for $1/mo to $600/mo on  Patreon,  GitHub Sponsors, or Open Collective

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Zheln subscription enables you to change the icon of a given Zheln record to a Star Wars symbol of your choice! Learn more on Zheln subscription platforms: Patreon, GitHub Sponsors, or Open Collective.

All Other Zheln Features Are Free for Everyone

 Search for Appraisals,  Browse by AMA Specialty,  Read Twice-Weekly Appraisal Summaries, or  Watch Daily Video Appraisals on YouTube