Attention should be given to multiplicity issues in systematic reviews

Ref ID 372
First Author R. Bender
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2008
URL https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(08)00093-0/fulltext
Keywords • General medical
• Subgroup
• Multiplicity
• Pre-specification
Problem(s) • Multiplicity of outcomes and lack of pre-specification for outcome reporting
• Unplanned or unjustified subgroup or sensitivity analyses
Article Type Non-systematic literature review
First Author Country Germany
Aim To outline multiplicity in systematic reviews, and present some examples from published reviews, including Cochrane reviews. The authors also discuss ways that each type of multiplicity can be mitigated.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings The authors highlight and discuss six types of multiplicity that can occur in systematic review with reference to some published examples. Multiplicity can occur from: multiple outcomes; multiple groups, multiple time points; multiple effect measures; subgroup analyses and multiple looks at accumulating data.
Number of systematic reviews included 7
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 7
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description