Research Christmas 2020: House of God

The time to act is now: pseudo-systematic review

Nathan Ford, Grania Brigden, Tom Ellman, et al

BMJ 2020; 371:m4143 (Published 10 December 2020) doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4143 

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.