Methodological quality of systematic reviews on influenza vaccination

Ref ID 239
First Author C. Remschmidt
Journal VACCINE
Year Of Publishing 2014
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24513008/
Keywords • Vaccination
• Disclosure
• Transparency
• Non-Cochrane reviews
• Cochrane
Problem(s) • Cochrane reviews more rigorous/higher quality than non-Cochrane reviews
• Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
• Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Germany
Checklists • AMSTAR 1
Aim To assess the methodological quality (AMSTAR) of systematic reviews on influenza vaccination (efficacy, effectiveness, safety) and to identify influencing factors of AMSTAR score including being a Cochrane versus, non-Cochrane review, industry sponsorship and journal impact factor.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings From 11 Cochrane review and 35 non-Cochrane systematic reviews the median AMSTAR summary score was 8, but variability was large (range: 0–11). The weakest areas were the declaration of potential conflicts of interest. Cochrane reviews had higher methodological quality than non-Cochrane reviews (p = 0.001). Detailed analysis showed that this was due to better study selection and data extraction, inclusion of unpublished studies, and better reporting of study characteristics (all p < 0.05). In the adjusted analysis, no other factor, including industry sponsorship or journal impact factor had an influence on AMSTAR score.
Number of systematic reviews included 46
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 564
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description