Methodological issues in designing and reporting of systematic reviews in assessing association between vitamin D supplementation and COVID-19 severity

Ref ID 842
First Author R. Bajpai
Journal QJM
Year Of Publishing 2023
URL https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/116/5/406/6647866?login=true
Keywords Reproducibility
Protocols
COVID
Heterogeneity
Vitamins and supplements
Low reporting quality
Non-Cochrane reviews
Problem(s) No registered or published protocol
Low reporting (PRISMA) quality
Methods not described to enable replication
Inadequate analysis of heterogeneity
Number of systematic reviews included 1
Summary of Findings From a letter highlighting problems in the conduct of a systematic review examining the effect of Vitamin D supplementation on the severity of COVID-19 published in 2022. Several methodological issues were reported to be identified relating to planning (no information on PROSPERO), conduct (non-reproducible literature search), analytical methods (misleading and biased analysis plan) and reporting (not following PRISMA checklist) that the letter author argues limits the acceptability and generalizability of the findings from the review and could mislead clinical decision-making.
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?