Methodological quality and reporting of systematic reviews in hand and wrist pathology

Ref ID 49
First Author J. Wasiak
Journal JOURNAL OF HAND SURGERY (EUROPEAN VOLUME)
Year Of Publishing 2017
URL https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1753193417712660
Keywords Surgery
Transparency
Grey literature
Publication bias
Risk of bias
Low reporting quality
Searching
Problem(s) Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Poor consideration of publication bias
Insufficient literature searches
No registered or published protocol
Grey literature excluded
No quality assessment undertaken or reported
Number of systematic reviews included 91
Summary of Findings For the 91 included systematic reviews in hand and wrist pathology published from 1997 to November 2016 the median PRISMA score was 15 out of 27 and median AMSTAR score was 4 out of 11. Areas of deficiency included presence of a review protocol (14%), assessment of risk of bias (methods) across studies (17%) and assessment of risk of bias (publications) across studies (18%); inclusion of conflict of interest or funding of included studies (1.1%), searching unpublished studies using the ‘grey’ literature (13%) and the use of ‘a priori’ design or reference to a protocol (15%).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? Yes