Systematic reviews of convalescent plasma in COVID-19 continue to be poorly conducted and reported: a systematic review

Ref ID	914
First Author	R. Whear
Journal	JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing	2022
URL	https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0895435622001780?via%3Dihub
Keywords	• Overlapping reviews/redundancy • COVID • Low methodological quality • Low reporting quality • Non-Cochrane reviews
Problem(s)	• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided • Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed • Low reporting (PRISMA) quality • Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality • No registered or published protocol • Redundant / overlapping / duplicated review question; leads to research waste
Number of systematic reviews included	51
Summary of Findings	From 51 included systematic reviews of the effectiveness of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 indexed in the Epistemonikos database in June 2021. There was considerable duplication of effort; multiple reviews were conducted at the same time with inconsistencies in the evidence included. The reviews were of low methodological quality, poorly reported, and did not adhere to preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis guidance. The AMSTAR-2 items that were least reported were: no available protocol (69%), authors not providing a list of excluded studies and justify the exclusions (80%), and authors not reporting on the sources of funding for the studies included in the review (88%).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results?	N/A
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study?	Yes