Assessing the Reporting of Harms in Systematic Reviews Focused on the Therapeutic and Cosmetic Uses of Botulinum Toxin

Ref ID 857
First Author K. Cox
Journal CLINICAL DRUG INVESTIGATION
Year Of Publishing 2023
URL https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40261-022-01235-6
Keywords Harms
Disclosure
Dermatology
Low methodological quality
Problem(s) Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
Selective reporting of harms / safety / adverse events / side effects
Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Following guidelines is no guarantee of a rigorous systematic review
Number of systematic reviews included 90
Summary of Findings From 90 included systematic reviews focused on the therapeutic and cosmetic uses of botulinum toxin indexed across Embase, Epistemonikos, MEDLINE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews up to May 31 2022. Of the 90 included systematic reviews, 70 completed less than 50% of harms items. In the AMSTAR 2 evaluation 83 had “critically low” methodological quality rating (92.2%). There were conflicts of interest in 24.4% and funding sources were not mentioned in 36.7%. Two statistically significant associations were found using the Kruskal-Wallis test: greater completeness of harms reporting (Mahady assessment) was associated with lower AMSTAR-2 ratings (p = 0.0060) and if harms was reported as a primary outcome (p = 0.0001). Authors’ adherence to PRISMA guidelines showed no significant relationship with their completeness of the harms reporting (Mahady assessment) (p > 0.05).
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? Yes