Methodological quality of systematic reviews and clinical trials on women's health published in a Brazilian evidence-based health journal

Ref ID 171
First Author C. R. Macedo
Journal CLINICS
Year Of Publishing 2013
URL https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634971/pdf/cln-68-04-563.pdf
Keywords • Error
• Publication bias
• Low reporting quality
• Risk of bias
• Reproductive health
• Gynaecology
• Single reviewer
Problem(s) • Poor consideration of publication bias
• No quality assessment undertaken or reported
• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
• Errors in effect estimate calculations or data synthesis
• Single reviewer / lack of double checking
• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Brazil
Aim To assess the methodological quality (AMSTAR) of systematic reviews of women's health published in electronic issues of the Sa˜o Paulo Medical Journal (Brazilian Journal of Evidence-based Health) published between 2008 and 2012 and available through the SciELO database.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings None of the five included reviews considered or mentioned the quality of included trials at formulating their conclusions nor did they assess publication bias. Only two systematic reviews (40%) provided a list of included/excluded studies and clearly stated that duplicate study selection and data extraction had been performed. Only two systematic reviews (40%) assessed the quality of included trials. Finally, only two systematic reviews (40%) used an appropriate method to combine studies.
Number of systematic reviews included 5
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 196
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description