Low Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews Published in the Urological Literature (2016-2018)

Ref ID 33
First Author M. Ding
Journal UROLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2020
URL https://www.goldjournal.net/article/S0090-4295(20)30021-2/fulltext
Keywords • Urology
• Protocols
• Publication bias
• Low reporting quality
• Risk of bias
• Disclosure
Problem(s) • Risk of bias not incorporated into conclusions of review
• Limited quality assessment or no risk of bias
• Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing
• Single reviewer / lack of double checking
• Poor consideration of publication bias
• Inadequate analysis of heterogeneity
• Meta-analyses and forest plots presented without considering risk of bias / quality
• Individual study characteristics not reported sufficiently
• No registered or published protocol
• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Canada
Checklists • AMSTAR 2
Aim To assess the methodological quality (AMSTAR 2) of urological systematic reviews published in 5 major urology journals between January 2016 to December 2018.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Methodological quality of the included 144 urological systematic reviews was low. Limitations included protocol registration (36%); explanation of included study designs (55%); duplicate study selection (81%); duplicate data extraction (45%); excluded studies justified (10%); details of included studies (69%); risk of bias (74%); funding of included studies assessed (6%); appropriate meta-analyses (65%); risk of bias incorporated into meta-analysis (72%); risk of bias incorporated into conclusion (74%); discussion of heterogeneity (30%; assessment of publication bias (54%); reporting potential conflicts of interest (74%).
Number of systematic reviews included 144
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 260
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description