External Validity The Next Step for Systematic Reviews?

Ref ID 284
First Author S. A. Avellar
Journal EVALUATION REVIEW
Year Of Publishing 2017
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27580622/
Keywords • General medical
• External validity
Problem(s) • Overly stringent inclusion criteria affecting external validity
Article Type Non-systematic literature review
First Author Country United States
Aim To assess how systematic reviews address external validity in a sample of both federally funded and non-federally funded reviews.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Included reviews commonly reported on aspects of applicability and feasibility but information on generalisability such as statistical representativeness, was not reported. When factors of included studies that were likely to increase heterogeneity were discussed, information was not reported consistently. But, when reported, it was often part of an intervention’s rating of effectiveness. Most reviews (73%) did not calculate an average effect size.
Number of systematic reviews included 19
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 19
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description