Lack of sex-related analysis and reporting in Cochrane Reviews: a cross-sectional study

Ref ID 840
First Author A. Antequera
Journal SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
Year Of Publishing 2022
URL https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13643-021-01867-3
Keywords Cochrane
Author
External validity
Equity
Team
Low reporting quality
Problem(s) Failure to consider equity, different socioeconomic groups or disadvantaged populations
Individual study characteristics not reported sufficiently
Weaknesses identified in some Cochrane reviews
Lack of diversity in review authorship teams
Number of systematic reviews included 516
Summary of Findings From 516 included Cochrane systematic reviews published during 2018 within the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Sex consideration amongst Cochrane systematic reviews was frequently missing. 56 out of 516 reviews included sex-related reporting in the abstract, 90 considered sex in their design, 380 provided sex-disaggregated descriptive data, 142 reported main outcomes or performed subgroup analyses by sex, and 76 discussed the potential impact of sex or the lack of such on the interpretations of findings. Women represented 53.1 and 42.2% of first and last authorships of Cochrane reviews, respectively. Women authors (in first and last position) was correlated with a higher probability of reporting sex in at least one of the review sections (OR 2.05; CI 95% 1.12–3.75, P=0.020) than having none.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No