The landscape of systematic reviews in urology (1998 to 2015): an assessment of methodological quality

Ref ID 30
First Author J. L. Han
Journal BJU INTERNATIONAL
Year Of Publishing 2017
URL https://bjui-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/bju.13653?download=true
Keywords Protocols
Transparency
Grey literature
Error
Publication bias
Risk of bias
Disclosure
Urology
Low reporting quality
Problem(s) No registered or published protocol
Grey literature excluded
Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing
Errors in effect estimate calculations or data synthesis
Poor consideration of publication bias
Single reviewer / lack of double checking
Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
No quality assessment undertaken or reported
Number of systematic reviews included 125
Summary of Findings The number of systematic reviews published in the urology literature has exponentially increased, year by year, but methodological quality has stagnated. Less than 50% of reviews met at least 5 out of the 11 AMSTAR criteria. The mean AMSTAR score from the 125 included urological systematic reviews published in the 2013–2015 period was 4.8 (standard deviation 2.4) out of 11. Previously, the mean AMSTAR score for the period 2009–2012 (n = 113), was 5.4 (SD 2.3); and for the period 1998–2008 (n = 57), it was 4.8 (2.0). The least commonly met AMSTAR criteria from the 2013–2015 period were ‘conflict of interest statement included’ (for both the systematic review and included studies) (4.0%); ‘status of publication used as an inclusion criterion’ (7.2%); and ‘a priori design provided’ (16.0%).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? Yes