Systematic reviews do not adequately report or address missing outcome data in their analyses: a methodological survey

Ref ID 359
First Author L. A. Kahale
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2018
URL https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(17)31397-5/fulltext
Keywords • General medical
• Missing data
• Cochrane
Problem(s) • Failure to address missing outcome data in analyses
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Lebanon
Aim To assess how systematic review authors report and address categories of participants with potential missing outcome data of trial participants from a random sample of 50 Cochrane and 50 non-Cochrane systematic reviews published in 2012.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Whilst 42 of 100 systematic reviews reported on at least one of the 10 predefined categories of missing outcome data, only 19 reported plans for handling missing outcome data in their analyses. Although 87 reviews addressed risk of bias associated with missing outcome data at the trial level, only nine reported conducting sensitivity analysis as a way to judge risk of bias associated with missing outcome data at the level of the meta-analysis. Of these, only five reported the results of their analysis.
Number of systematic reviews included 100
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 1137
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description