Paper – Systematic Reviewlution

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
Number of systematic reviews included	495
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.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results?	N/A
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study?	Yes