Methodological quality of systematic reviews on treatments for Alzheimer's disease: a cross-sectional study

Ref ID 917
First Author C.C.W. Zhong
Journal ALZHEIMER'S RESEARCH & THERAPY
Year Of Publishing 2022
URL https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-022-01100-w
Keywords • Cochrane
• Protocols
• Neurology
• Non-Cochrane reviews
• Low methodological quality
• Disclosure
• Pre-specification
• Cognition
Problem(s) • No registered or published protocol
• Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
• Lack of prespecification in eligibility criteria
• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country China
Checklists • AMSTAR 2
Aim To examine the methodological quality of Systematic Reviews on Alzheimer’s disease treatments, along with potentially relevant factors.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings From 102 included systematic reviews of interventions for Alzheimer’s disease indexed across Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO from January 2014 to February 2021. Of 102 reviews, the methodological quality (AMSTAR-2), 48 (47.1%), and 36 (35.3%) was low, and critically low quality, respectively. The following significant methodological limitations were identified: only 22.5% of systematic reviews registered protocols a priori, 6.9% discussed the rationales of chosen study designs, 21.6% gave a list of excluded studies with reasons, and 23.5% documented funding sources of primary studies. Cochrane systematic reviews (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 31.9, 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.81–266.9) and systematic reviews of pharmacological treatments (AOR: 3.96, 95%CI: 1.27–12.3) were related to the higher overall methodological quality of systematic reviews.
Number of systematic reviews included 102
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 8366
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description