Methodological quality of systematic reviews on atopic dermatitis treatments: a cross-sectional study

Ref ID 1023
First Author L. Ho
Journal JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGICAL TREATMENT
Year Of Publishing 2024
URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546634.2024.2343072
Keywords • Dermatology
• Low methodological quality
Problem(s) • Insufficient literature searches
• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
• Cochrane reviews more rigorous/higher quality than non-Cochrane reviews
• Funding or sponsor of systematic review not reported
• Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
• Limited quality assessment or no risk of bias
• No registered or published protocol
• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Hong Kong
Checklists • AMSTAR 2
Aim To appraise the methodological rigor of a recent representative sample of Systematic Reviews (SRs) on Atopic Dermatitis treatments using AMSTAR 2 and investigate the potential bibliographical predictors of methodological quality.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings From 52 included systematic reviews indexed across MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Database published in 2019–2022 on AD treatments. Among the 52 appraised SRs on atopic dermatitis treatments published between January 2019 and September 2022 in English or Chinese, only one (1.9%) had high methodological quality, while 45 (86.5%) critically low. For critical domains, only five (9.6%) had a comprehensive search strategy, seven (13.5%) provided a list of excluded studies, 17 (32.7%) considered risk of bias in primary studies, 21 (40.4%) contained registered protocol, and 24 (46.2%) investigated publication bias. Nearly half (n = 24; 46.2%) of the included SRs did not report on funding sources. Cochrane reviews (p = 0.004), updates of previous SRs (p = 0.027), SRs with the corresponding author from Europe (p = 0.007), and SRs funded by institutions or organizations in Europe (p = 0.002) were associated with better overall methodological quality, compared to their counterparts.
Number of systematic reviews included 52
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 942
Treatment impacted Not Applicable
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description