Characteristics and quality of systematic reviews of acupuncture, herbal medicines, and homeopathy

Ref ID 767
First Author K. Linde
Journal COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE RESEARCH
Year Of Publishing 2003
URL https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1218525
Keywords • Complimentary & Alternative
• Overlapping reviews/redundancy
• Low reporting quality
Problem(s) • Failure to define clinically meaningful outcomes
• Poor execution of narrative synthesis
• Intervention not described / defined
• Redundant / overlapping / duplicated review question; leads to research waste
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Germany
Aim To assess the methodological quality (Oxman scale) of systematic reviews of three major complimentary therapies
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings From 115 systematic reviews of complimentary therapies (39 on acupuncture, 58 on herbal medicine, 18 on homeopathy) the methodological quality of reviews was highly variable. Deficiencies were most frequent for the description of the selection process and the summary of the results of primary studies.
Number of systematic reviews included 115
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 115
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description