Acupuncture and Related Therapies for Chronic Urticaria: A Critical Overview of Systematic Reviews

Ref ID 925
First Author Y.Z. Shi
Journal EVIDENCE-BASED COMPLEMENTARY & ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: ECAM
Year Of Publishing 2022
URL https://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/2094589
Keywords Protocols
Transparency
Complimentary & Alternative
Risk of bias
Pre-specification
Sponsorship bias
Disclosure
Dermatology
Low reporting quality
Low methodological quality
Problem(s) Lack of prespecification in eligibility criteria
Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Low reporting (PRISMA) quality
Conflicts of interest or funding of included studies not assessed
Funding or sponsor of systematic review not reported
Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
No registered or published protocol
Undocumented or unjustified deviations to the review protocol
High risk of bias (ROBIS)
Number of systematic reviews included 23
Summary of Findings From 23 included systematic reviews of of acupuncture and related therapies for chronic urticaria indexed across eight electronic databases from inception to October 2021.The methodological quality of all systematic reviews was critically low. The AMSTAR-2 items that were least reported were: availability or deviation from a protocol (91.3%); authors explaining their selection of the study designs for inclusion (100%); authors providing a list of excluded studies and justify the exclusions (100%), and authors reporting on the sources of funding for the studies included in the review (100%); authors reporting any potential sources of conflict of interest or funding they received for conducting the review (91.3%). For PRISMA, the reporting quality of the included systematic reviews was unsatisfactory, and major reporting flaws were observed in the search strategy, synthesis method, certainly assessment, reporting biases, registrations, and financial support of the included systematic reviews. For ROBIS, 22 systematic reviews (95.65%) had a high risk of bias.
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