Incorporating quality assessments of primary studies in the conclusions of diagnostic accuracy reviews: a cross-sectional study

Ref ID 449
First Author E. A. Ochodo
Journal BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2014
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24588874/
Keywords • Diagnostic
Problem(s) • Risk of bias not incorporated into conclusions of review
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country The Netherlands
Aim To assess the extent to which the results of quality assessment of included studies are incorporated in the conclusions of diagnostic accuracy reviews.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Only 9% of included reviews linked the results of quality assessment to their conclusions, half of which did not conduct a meta-analysis due to limitations in the quality of included studies. In the reviews with a meta-analysis, 36% incorporated quality in the analysis. For reviews that reported significant effects of quality on the pooled estimates, none of them factored these effects into the conclusions.
Number of systematic reviews included 65
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 1273
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description