2023 Mar 07

New citation required and conclusions have changed

In this update, we report that the certainty of the evidence for the main outcomes ranged from low to very low; the evidence suggests that the use of phenobarbital results in little to no difference in the incidence of intraventricular haemorrhage (any grade; grade III and IV) compared with control. The previous version of this Cochrane Review concluded that postnatal phenobarbital could not be recommended for prophylaxis against IVH in preterm infants.

2023 Mar 07

New search has been performed

New authorship.

Methods have been updated to meet MECIR standards and address the risk of bias.

GRADE recommendations and a summary of findings have now been included.

We updated searches in 2022. We included one new study (Ruth 1985); this is an older study, but it was identified after search strategies had been revised to increase sensitivity and searches were conducted without date limits. We excluded two new studies (Cooke 1982; Saliba 1991).

Three previously included studies have been moved to Additional References because they were not randomised – as was clear from the study titles (Liang 2009;  Zhang 2009) or abstract (Sluncheva 2006). According to Cochrane methods, only RCTs and quasi‐RCTs are included in Cochrane Reviews, and the full text of these studies should not have been assessed.

Three previously excluded studies have been moved to Additional References: two of these studies were not randomised or quasi‐randomised studies, as was clear from the titles/abstracts (Chen 2008; Hope 1982), and one did not meet the gestational age inclusion criteria, as was clear from the abstract (Liu 2010).

2012 Dec 17

New citation required but conclusions have not changed

New authorship.

A repeat search on October 31, 2012 identified four more studies, of which two were eligible for inclusion in this review update. One was excluded in view of lack of randomisation, one was excluded as it failed to meet the inclusion criteria.

2012 Oct 31

New search has been performed

This review updates the original review "Postnatal phenobarbital for the prevention of intraventricular haemorrhage in preterm infants", published in the Cochrane Library, Issue 4, 2007 (Whitelaw 2007).

2008 Jun 10

Amended

Converted to new review format.

2017 May 10

Amended

Converted to new review format.