Publisher Faculty of 1000 has announced the launch of an innovative new product, F1000Trials, designed to enable rapid discovery and understanding of articles about clinical trials. F1000Trials is a continually updated, comprehensive database of articles on randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews, drawn from more than 300 key general and specialist medical journals.
As randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews in healthcare have grown in their number and influence, there is an increasing need to identify those studies which should change how physicians treat their patients – and those which should not. F1000Trials extends the widely-recognised system of peer- nominated experts identifying great research in biology and medicine pioneered by F1000Prime. In F1000Trials, the F1000 Faculty Members provide expert assessment of newly published trial articles and write short reviews, recommending the most noteworthy by assigning star ratings and highlighting those which change clinical practice.
Clinical trials can produce numerous publications about the same trial, scattered and disconnected across different journals and databases. F1000Trials makes it easier to find clinical trials by providing links to all publications known about a particular trial that are included in the largest bibliographic life science database, PubMed. Links to trial registration databases are also included, helping to create an electronic 'threaded publication trail' about clinical trials.
F1000Trials provides a powerful search engine, allowing users to search instantly across all known generic names and brand names of particular drugs, as well as search for specific studies, diseases and conditions. F1000Trials identifies and tags articles that report negative or null results – important studies for providing complete medical evidence, which can be difficult to identify with current literature searching tools.
F1000Trials is currently in its public 'beta' phase, and is free to access to anyone who registers on the website. Faculty of 1000 invites all people interested in improving how we access and communicate information about clinical trials to try out F1000Trials and send their feedback.
