Quality of systematic reviews on timing of complementary feeding for early childhood allergy prevention

Ref ID 890
First Author U. Matterne
Journal BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2023
URL https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12874-023-01899-4
Keywords Paediatrics
Risk of bias
Pre-specification
Disclosure
Low reporting quality
Non-Cochrane reviews
Problem(s) Lack of prespecification in eligibility criteria
Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
Incorrect interpretation or statistical inference error from meta-analysis
Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
High risk of bias (ROBIS)
Errors in effect estimate calculations or data synthesis
Number of systematic reviews included 12
Summary of Findings From twelve systematic reviews of the effects of earlier versus later introduction of complementary feeding on the incidence of allergy/allergic disease in infants and children indexed across PubMed, Medline (Ovid), and Web of Science Core Collection on 13th January 2022. Nine of the 12 included systematic reviews (75%) were found to be of critically low to low methodological quality according to AMSTAR-2 and to be at high risk of bias according to ROBIS. Half of the reviews did not provide an adequate explanation of the study designs for inclusion; half did not provide a list of excluded studies and the reasons for exclusion. Nine of the 12 reviews (75%) did not consider funding sources for the included studies. Using ROBIS, only 2 reviews were judged to have specified adequate eligibility criteria; all others were downgraded. Concerns regarding the identification and selection of relevant studies were raised by 8 reviews (66.6%). Nine of the reviews (75%) were found to show major flaws in their synthesis and findings approach.
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