| Ref ID | 310 |
| First Author | L. C. Toews |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION: JMLA |
| Year Of Publishing | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5490700/pdf/jmla-105-233.pdf |
| Keywords |
• Animal studies • Searching • Grey literature • Reproducibility |
| Problem(s) |
• Insufficient literature searches • Search strategy not provided • Grey literature excluded • Methods not described to enable replication |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Canada |
| Checklists |
• PRISMA 2009 |
| Aim | To assess compliance of systematic reviews in veterinary journals with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines for literature search reporting and to examine the completeness, bias, and reproducibility of the searches in these reviews from what was reported. The second objective was to examine reporting of the credentials and contributions of those involved in the search process. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | Most reviews had significant deficiencies in reporting the search process that raise questions about how these searches were conducted and ultimately cast serious doubts on the validity and reliability of reviews based on a potentially biased and incomplete body of literature. Over one-third of reviews (37%) did not search the CAB Abstracts database, and 9% of reviews searched only 1 database. Over two-thirds of reviews (65%) did not report any search for grey literature or stated that they excluded grey literature. The majority of reviews (95%) did not report a reproducible search strategy. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 75 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 75 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |