Systematic reviews with language restrictions and no author contact have lower overall credibility: a methodology study

High-quality systematic reviews (SRs) require rigorous approaches to identify, appraise, select, and synthesize research evidence relevant to a specific question. In this study, we evaluated the association between two steps in the conduct of an SR - restricting the search to English, and author con...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Clinical epidemiology 2015-01, Vol.7 (default), p.243-247
Main Authors: Wang, Zhen, Brito, Juan P, Tsapas, Apostolos, Griebeler, Marcio L, Alahdab, Fares, Murad, Mohammad Hassan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Bias
Clinical medicine
Credibility
Diabetes
Endocrinology
Epidemiology
Evidence-based medicine
Funding
Health care policy
Impact factors
Language
Medicine
Meta-analysis
Metabolism
Methodology
Practice guidelines (Medicine)
Quality
Restrictions
Studies
Systematic review
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:High-quality systematic reviews (SRs) require rigorous approaches to identify, appraise, select, and synthesize research evidence relevant to a specific question. In this study, we evaluated the association between two steps in the conduct of an SR - restricting the search to English, and author contact for missing data - and the overall credibility of a SR. All SRs cited by the Endocrine Society's Clinical Practice Guidelines published from October 2006 through January 2012 were included. The main outcome was the overall A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) score, as a surrogate of SR credibility. Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis tests and multivariable linear regression models were used to investigate the association between language restriction, author contact for missing data, and the overall AMSTAR score. In all, 69 SRs were included in the analysis. Only 31 SRs (45%) reported searching non-English literature, with an average AMSTAR score of 7.90 (standard deviation [SD] =1.64). SRs that reported language restriction received significantly lower AMSTAR scores (mean =5.25, SD =2.32) (P
ISSN:1179-1349
1179-1349
DOI:10.2147/CLEP.S78879