Contacting of authors modified crucial outcomes of systematic reviews but was poorly reported, not systematic, and produced conflicting results

Ref ID 593
First Author R. Meursinge Reynders
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2019
URL https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(19)30456-1/fulltext
Keywords Cochrane
Author
Missing data
General medical
Problem(s) Failure to address missing outcome data in analyses
Number of systematic reviews included 319
Summary of Findings Cochrane reviewers contacted (73.4%) or had tried to contact authors (80.0%) frequently but reporting by Cochrane reviewers on procedures for contacting authors and their outcomes was poor. Most eligible studies in the reviews were poorly reported, but few reviewers 21.2% (65/306) reported that they had contacted these studies.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Yes
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? Yes