| Ref ID | 505 |
| First Author | G. Castellini |
| Journal | SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS |
| Year Of Publishing | 2018 |
| URL | https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/595908/1086420/Castellini_Assessing imprecision.pdf |
| Keywords |
• Cochrane • Imprecision • General medical • Certainty |
| Problem(s) |
• Weaknesses identified in some Cochrane reviews • Interpreted without considering certainty or overall quality of the evidence base |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Italy |
| Aim | To assess the reporting of and adherence to GRADE and to compare the assessment of imprecision assessed by GRADE or by trial sequential analysis in a sample of 100 systematic reviews published in the Cochrane Library in 2016 and 2017. |
| Level of Investigation | Analytical |
| Summary of Findings | Very few (13.0%) of the reviews that graded the evidence reported the criteria they applied to assess imprecision. The most common imprecision components were width of 95% confidence interval (8.0%) and optimal information size referred to participants (4.0%). Almost half of the outcomes (48.0%) were downgraded for imprecision. In 30.0% of reviews, judgement of outcomes differed between the review authors and the authors of this article who followed the GRADE Handbook. A significant lack of reporting of and adherence to GRADE was observed in Cochrane systematic reviews. Trial sequential analysis was useful for validating the appropriate implementation of GRADE. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 100 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 100 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |