| Ref ID | 500 |
| First Author | K. Pussegoda |
| Journal | SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS |
| Year Of Publishing | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5477124/pdf/13643_2017_Article_507.pdf |
| Keywords |
• General medical • Risk of bias • Overviews/Umbrella Reviews |
| Problem(s) |
• Lack of guidance or consistency in systematic overview / umbrella / review of systematic reviews • No quality assessment undertaken or reported |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Canada |
| Aim | To assess reports assessing the methodological quality and/or reporting quality of a cohort of systematic reviews and to assess their number, general characteristics, and approaches to ‘quality’ assessment over time. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | 76 reports were identified in the health care literature which assessed the methodological or reporting quality of systematic reviews. The number of reports has increased over time but the criteria used to assess methodological quality and critical appraisal of systematic reviews varied considerably across reports but sometimes erroneously conflates reporting guidelines e.g. PRISMA, OQAQ, with overall or methodological quality. Some reviews inappropriately use GRADE or the Jadad scale to assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews. The authors highlight the distinction between methodological quality and risk of bias, the latter of which assesses systemic flaws or limitations in the design, conduct, or analysis of research that distort the findings. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 76 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 20765 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |