| Ref ID | 389 |
| First Author | M. C. Weir |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2012 |
| URL | https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(11)00394-5/fulltext |
| Keywords |
• External validity • Mental health • Overlapping reviews/redundancy |
| Problem(s) |
• Review question not justified / important • Redundant / overlapping / duplicated review question; leads to research waste |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Canada |
| Aim | To assess "lumping" and "splitting" in the review questions and to how review authors justified their decisions about the scope of their reviews, and explore how review authors cited other systematic reviews in the field. A sample of systematic reviews on health behaviour change interventions assess published between 1987 and 2008 were retrieved. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | Review authors from the included reviews poorly justified their decisions about the scope of their reviews and tended not to cite other similar reviews. Most reviews (77%) were "split" (specified a certain subgroup under population, study design, outcomes, setting, and condition) as opposed to "split" (assessed the effect of reminder interventions for all health professionals on all outcomes, settings, conditions, and study designs). |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 31 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 19265 |