Dissemination bias in systematic reviews of animal research: a systematic review

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
Number of systematic reviews included	512
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%).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results?	N/A
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study?	Yes