Half of systematic reviews about pain registered in PROSPERO were not published and the majority had inaccurate status

Ref ID 607
First Author E. Runjic
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2019
URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0895435619304639
Keywords • Protocols
• Pain
Problem(s) • Unpublished or "zombie" reviews (the file-drawer effect)
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Croatia
Aim To assess characteristics of systematic reviews registered in PROSPERO from inception to May 2017 and to survey authors of unpublished systematic reviews about reasons for nonpublication.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings In 2018, around half of systematic reviews had not been published at least 1.3 years after registration in PROSPERO. The majority of PROSPERO records had ‘‘ongoing’’ (76.3%) and ‘‘completed not published’’ (9.2%) status. Authors' main reasons for discontinuing systematic reviews were publication of a systematic review with a similar or same topic by another author team and rejection of the systematic review manuscript
Number of systematic reviews included 1408
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 3115
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description