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