| Ref ID | 555 |
| First Author | K. F. Mueller |
| Journal | PLOS ONE |
| Year Of Publishing | 2014 |
| URL | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0116016 |
| Keywords |
• Animal studies • Pre-specification • Low methodological quality • Low reporting quality • Heterogeneity • Publication bias |
| Problem(s) |
• Low reporting or methodological quality (OTHER GUIDANCE) • No quality assessment undertaken or reported • Lack of prespecification in eligibility criteria • Poor consideration of publication bias • Inadequate analysis of heterogeneity • Individual study characteristics not reported sufficiently |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Germany |
| Checklists |
• AMSTAR 2 |
| Aim | To assess the methodological features of systematic reviews of in vivo animal studies with respect to the assessment of publication bias |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | Only 59% of included systematic reviews clearly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria; just over half (51%) displayed a list or flow diagram of the included studies; 24% of included reviews did not report how many studies were included. The majority of the included systematic reviews and meta-analyses of animal studies did not assess methodological quality of included studies (71%), or assess heterogeneity (81%), or publication bias (87%). |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 512 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 3019 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |