| Ref ID | 869 |
| First Author | M.A. Han |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0895435622001123?via%3Dihub |
| Keywords |
• Inference • Language • Observational studies • Non-Cochrane reviews |
| Problem(s) |
• Low reporting or methodological quality (OTHER GUIDANCE) • Incorrect interpretation or statistical inference error from meta-analysis |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Republic of Korea |
| Aim | To systematically evaluate causal language use in systematic reviews of observational studies and explore the relation between language use and the intent of the investigation |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | From 199 included reviews of observational studies randomly selected from those indexed in EMBASE, MEDLINE, and Epistemonikos in 2019. 56.8% had causal intent. Systematic reviews with causal intent were more likely to investigate therapeutic clinical intervention (33.6% vs. 12.8%). Although 78.8% of those with causal intent used causal language in one or more sections of the title, abstract, or main text, only 4.4% consistently used causal language throughout the manuscript, and 21.2% did not use causal language at all. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 199 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 12971 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |