About

About this research

Systematic reviews are the best way to review evidence from multiple studies and they influence important decisions in medicine and patient care.

This is a living review compiling evidence of where published systematic reviews are not being done well. Awareness of these problems will enable researchers, publishers and decision makers to conduct better systematic reviews in the future.

This project is registered with the Open Science Framework and the PROSPERO registry of systematic reviews

And published here:

Uttley, L., Quintana, D. S., Montgomery, P., Carroll, C., Page, M. J., Falzon, L., … & Moher, D. (2023). The problems with systematic reviews: a living systematic review. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

Funding and support

This research is funded by a Career Development Award to Lesley Uttley from the UK Medical Research Council, UKRI to investigate human influences in systematic reviews.

This project is conducted independently to any good practice guidelines or methodological groups.

Contributors

Lesley Uttley

Senior Research Fellow, University of Sheffield

Daniel Quintana

Senior Researcher, University of Oslo

Anthea Sutton

Senior Information Specialist, University of Sheffield

Chris Carroll

Reader, University of Sheffield

Paul Montgomery

Professor of Social Intervention, University of Birmingham

Matthew Page

Senior Research Fellow, Monash University

David Moher

Senior Scientist, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Louise Falzon

Research Assistant, University of Sheffield

Resources for Good Practice in Systematic Reviews

This work is conducted independently to systematic review organisations or guideline groups. Part of this work involves understanding how well reporting and methodological guidelines identify problems with systematic reviews. The following guidelines have been used to assess how well systematic reviews are conducted and reported. Not all problems are necessarily addressed by these guidelines.

Reporting of systematic reviews