Risk of Bias and Methodological Critical Appraisal in Systematic Reviews of Non- and Micro-Invasive Caries Management for Primary and Permanent Teeth

Ref ID 1032
First Author C.M. Laux
Journal CARIES RESEARCH
Year Of Publishing 2024
URL https://karger.com/cre/article/58/5/469/898537/Risk-of-Bias-and-Methodological-Critical-Appraisal
Keywords Dentistry
Paediatrics
Low methodological quality
Problem(s) Poor consideration of publication bias
Risk of bias not incorporated into conclusions of review
No registered or published protocol
Number of systematic reviews included 39
Summary of Findings Of the 39 the included reviews, the majority (27, 69.2%) were rated as having critically low methodological quality using AMSTAR 2. Only one study (2.6%) attained a high methodological quality rating. The most prevalent critical domain flaw was the lack of a prospectively registered protocol observed in 33 (84.6%) of the included reviews. In addition, 21 (53.8%) of the included reviews did not comprehensively report assessing the presence and impact of publication bias. Almost half of the reviews did not consider the risk of bias when interpreting their results (48.7%). The ROBIS assessments showed that the majority of reviews (21, 53.8%) were categorised as low risk of bias while reviews were classified as unclear (20.5%) and high (25.6%).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study?