Inadequate critical appraisal of studies in systematic reviews of time to diagnosis

Ref ID 694
First Author E. Launay
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2016
URL https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2016.03.013
Keywords • Diagnostic
Problem(s) • Risk of bias not incorporated into conclusions of review
• Limited quality assessment or no risk of bias
• Ignores setting or context of included studies which limits review applicability
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country France
Aim To assess the critical appraisal of systematic reviews of time-to-diagnosis from a sample indexed in MEDLINE via PubMed and Web of Science for up to the end of February 2015.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Of the 45 included systematic reviews, only 51% reported a critical appraisal process. Overall 36% of all systematic reviews reported assessment of at least one item on risk of bias and/or threats to generalisability. Authors did not report how results of the critical appraisal were used in 23% of the SRs with critical appraisal.
Number of systematic reviews included 45
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 1936
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description