- Framework of problems / Comprehensive
- Poor consideration of publication bias
- Prenatal exposure to ambient air pollutants and congenital heart defects: An umbrella review
| Ref ID | 1045 |
| First Author | S. Michel |
| Journal | ENVIRONMENT INTERNATIONAL |
| Year Of Publishing | 2023 |
| URL | https://www-sciencedirect-com.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/S0160412023003495?via%3Dihub |
| Keywords |
Cardiology Risk of bias Environment |
| Problem(s) |
Poor consideration of publication bias Lack of statistical expertise in handling of quantitative data Methods not described to enable replication Grey literature excluded Limited quality assessment or no risk of bias No registered or published protocol |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 11 |
| Summary of Findings | Of the 11 included systematic reviews, three were judged as high risk of bias and the remaining seven as an unclear risk of bias using ROBIS. Four reviews (36.3%) made no additional efforts to identify published or unpublished literature in addition to the database searching. For the appraisal of the quality or risk of bias in primary studies, four reviews (36.3%) did not conduct a formal assessment. For the ROBIS domain 4, “appropriateness of data synthesis”, only one review (9.0%) documented planned analyses in an a priori protocol. In five reviews (45.4%), the method of choosing the meta-analytical model was not appropriate. For one review, none of the four selected meta-analytical results could be reproduced, including the narrow CIs. Further, subgroup or sensitivity analyses, or statistical assessments of publication bias using funnel plots were not conducted for some meta-analyses |
| 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? |