Health checks have little or no effect on the risk of death from any cause (high-certainty evidence), or on the risk of death from cancer (high-certainty evidence), and probably have little or no effect on the risk of death from cardiovascular causes (moderate-certainty evidence). This is an unusually large amount of data in healthcare research, which allowed us to draw our main conclusions with a high degree of certainty. Eleven of these trials had studied the risk of death, and included 233,298 participants and assessed 21,535 deaths. We found 17 randomised trials that had compared a group of adults offered general health checks to a group not offered health checks.įifteen trials reported results and included 251,891 participants. We analysed the effect on illness and the risk of death, as well as other outcomes that reflect illness, for example, hospitalisation and absence from work. We identified and analysed all randomised trials that compared invitations for one or more health checks for the general public with no invitations. Experience from screening programmes for individual diseases have shown that the benefits may be smaller than expected and the harms greater. Health checks are a common element of health care in some countries. The purpose is to find disease early, prevent disease from developing, or provide reassurance.

General health checks involve multiple tests in a person who does not feel ill. Systematic offers of health checks are unlikely to be beneficial and may lead to unnecessary tests and treatments. This is an update of a previous Cochrane Review. The aim of this Cochrane Review was to find out if general health checks reduce illness and deaths.

Risk pc review