| Ref ID | 334 |
| First Author | A. Onishi |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2014 |
| URL | https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(14)00274-1/fulltext |
| Keywords |
• General medical • Publication bias |
| Problem(s) |
• Poor consideration of publication bias |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Meta-epidemiological analysis |
| First Author Country | Japan |
| Checklists |
• AMSTAR 1 |
| Aim | To assess how often a significant publication bias existed when the assessment of publication bias was not reported in systematic reviews with meta-analyses of interventions and risk/prognostic factors published in the general medical journals with the top 10 impact factors in 2011 and 2012. |
| Level of Investigation | Analytical |
| Summary of Findings | The assessment of publication bias was not reported in 31.0% of included reviews, particularly in reviews without a comprehensive literature search. Of these 36 reviews, seven (19.4%) were found to have a significant publication bias. The original pooled results may have been overestimated by a median of 50.9% if corrected for publication bias. Among the 28 reviews with publication bias including both reviews that did or did not report the assessment of publication bias, seven reviews (25.0%) did not report the presence of publication bias. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 116 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 1773 |
| Treatment impacted | Yes |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Yes |
| Interpretation impacted description | Overestimates of efficacy were found by a median of 50.9% because of publication bias when its assessment was not reported |