| Ref ID | 40 |
| First Author | R. Bassani |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF DENTISTRY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2019 |
| URL | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30716451/ |
| Keywords |
• Dentistry • Grey literature • Publication bias • Risk of bias • Transparency |
| Problem(s) |
• Interpreted without considering certainty or overall quality of the evidence base • Inconclusive or lack of recommendations • Risk of bias not incorporated into conclusions of review • Funding or sponsor of systematic review not reported • Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided • Grey literature excluded • Poor consideration of publication bias • No quality assessment undertaken or reported |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Brazil |
| Aim | To assess the reporting quality of systematic reviews in dentistry published within PubMed in 2017. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | Only a small proportion of the 495 included systematic reviews in dentistry (44 (19%)) reported a GRADE assessment of the body of evidence. Most of the systematic reviews (296 (59.8%)) did not note the existence of limitations, whereas the report of limitations at the study and review levels was seen in 95 systematic reviews (19.2%). Further, the incorporation of information with regards to study risk-of-bias/quality/ limitations in the Abstract conclusions section was only seen in 49 systematic reviews (19.5%). The source of funding not was described in 192 (38.8%) of systematic reviews, and 181 (36.6%) reported that the authors had no funding. 308/478 (64.4%) of included reviews noted the reasons for exclusion of studies in a PRISMA-like flow diagram or text/table. However, the number of systematic reviews that did not report reasons for exclusion of full-text articles was also high (158 (33%)). Systematic reviews that reported including grey literature were infrequent (90/491 (18.3%)). More than a third (364 (73.4%)) commented that publication bias was not assessed and just 85 (17.2%) declared that publication bias was assessed. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 495 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 1375 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |