| Ref ID | 451 |
| First Author | L. Rosen |
| Journal | BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2016 |
| URL | https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12874-016-0118-2.pdf |
| Keywords |
• Allegiance • Author • Public health • Spin • Overlapping reviews/redundancy • Missing data |
| Problem(s) |
• Errors in study inclusion or omission of relevant studies • Spin or subjective interpretation of findings • Following guidelines is no guarantee of a rigorous systematic review • Redundant / overlapping / duplicated review question; leads to research waste |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Case study |
| First Author Country | Israel |
| Checklists |
• AMSTAR 1 |
| Aim | To assess two systematic reviews on the same topic (prevention of child exposure to tobacco smoke) to understand why study cohorts and subsequently the findings differed in the two reviews. [The authors were authors on one of the included reviews.] |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | Both reviews performed well on methodological (AMSTAR) quality. Review conclusions differed for both primary and subgroup analyses and could be considered as discordant. Reasons included: differing inclusion criteria, omission of relevant studies, measurement of outcomes, differing requirements for quantitative data, and search issues, including how and which sources were searched. A minority of omissions resulted from discordant reviewer interpretations of identical inclusion criteria. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 2 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 2 |
| Treatment impacted | Yes |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Yes |
| Interpretation impacted description | Review conclusions differed for both primary and subgroup analyses and could be considered as discordant by criteria outlined in Moja L, del Rio MP F, Banzi R, Cusi C, D'Amico R, Liberati A, et al. Multiple systematic reviews: methods for assessing discordances of results. Intern Emerg Med. 2012;7(6):563–8. |