Quality of systematic reviews on the treatment of vesiculobullous skin diseases. A meta-epidemiological study

Ref ID 1052
First Author K.M.M. Sa
Journal ANAIS BRASILEIROS DE DERMATOLOGIA
Year Of Publishing 2024
URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0365059623002386?via%3Dihub
Keywords • Dermatology
• Low methodological quality
• Publication bias
• Protocols
• Heterogeneity
• Risk of bias
• Disclosure
• Single reviewer
Problem(s) • No registered or published protocol
• Risk of bias not incorporated into conclusions of review
• Limited quality assessment or no risk of bias
• Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
• Lack of prespecification in eligibility criteria
• Insufficient literature searches
• Single reviewer / lack of double checking
• Poor consideration of publication bias
• Inadequate analysis of heterogeneity
• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Brazil
Checklists • AMSTAR 2
Aim To critically appraise and assess methodological quality (AMSTAR-2) of systematic reviews indexed on MEDLINE (via Pubmed) in December 2022 of pharmacological interventions for vesiculobullous skin diseases.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings From 9 included systematic reviews indexed on MEDLINE (via Pubmed) in December 2022 of pharmacological interventions for vesiculobullous skin diseases. 55.6% (5/9) were classified as critically low quality, and one was low quality (11.1%). None of the reviews reported a review protocol registration, an explanation of the primary study design selection, a list of excluded studies with reasons, or funding sources of the included studies. Of these reviews, 40% (2/5) did not have a comprehensive search strategy; 60% (3/5) did not perform study selection and data extraction by two independent authors; and 40% (2/5) did not use a satisfactory technique for assessing the Risk of Bias (RoB) in individual RCTs. The only study in this classification that performed meta-analysis did not evaluate the impact of risk of bias of individual studies in the meta-analysis and did not perform publication bias investigation. Four of the five reviews (80%) did not account for RoB in individual studies when interpreting/discussing the results of the review, and three (60%) did not report investigating heterogeneity.
Number of systematic reviews included 9
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 229