Systematic reviews of surgical procedures in children: quantity, coverage and quality

Ref ID	166
First Author	R. G. McGee
Journal	JOURNAL OF PAEDIATRICS AND CHILD HEALTH
Year Of Publishing	2013
URL	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/jpc.12156?download=true
Keywords	• Surgery • Paediatrics • Risk of bias • Low reporting quality • Reproducibility
Problem(s)	• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality • Methods not described to enable replication • Intervention not described / defined • Meta-analyses and forest plots presented without considering risk of bias / quality • Failure to define clinically meaningful outcomes • Individual study characteristics not reported sufficiently
Number of systematic reviews included	15
Summary of Findings	Reporting and methodological quality, as assessed by PRISMA and AMSTAR respectively, was generally adequate although there were several omissions, particularly around completeness of reporting of statistical methods used, and use of quality assessments in analyses. Descriptions of procedures often lacked specific details, which would enhance their reproduction, for example, highlighting similarities and differences between the surgical procedures used in the trials included in the review. Reported outcomes were diverse and loosely defined. Less than a third of reviews assessed outcomes important to patients and clinicians such as adverse events.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results?	N/A
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study?	No