| Ref ID | 77 |
| First Author | O. A. Samargandi |
| Journal | PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2014 |
| URL | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25158728/ |
| Keywords |
• Surgery • Transparency |
| Problem(s) |
• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided • Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed • Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality • Funding or sponsor of systematic review not reported • Following guidelines is no guarantee of a rigorous systematic review |
| Article Type | Editorial |
| Article Subtype | Comment/letter |
| First Author Country | Canada |
| Checklists |
• AMSTAR 1 |
| Aim | A letter highlighting some limitations with a cross-sectional study of the methodological quality of systematic reviews of hand surgery and also a brief analysis of systematic reviews of hand surgery published from 2003 to 2013. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | The authors highlight that a previous cross sectional study had found moderate AMSTAR quality in systematic reviews of hand surgery. However the authors had not applied two criteria stringently. Namely, where included reviews did not provide excluded studies but did report included studies, this was overlooked. Also where funding for both included studies and the review authors should be stated, the authors had overlooked if only one had been provided. The authors identified and analysed a sample of 14 hand surgery systematic reviews were identified. Applying the same AMSTAR assessment, on these studies, focusing on the two aforementioned criteria discussed previously. They found that only 21.4 percent (versus 88.1 percent) of studies provided a list of included and excluded studies and none of the studies (versus 81 percent) provided a clear acknowledgment of potential source of support in the systematic review and the included studies. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 14 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 90 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |