Quality of systematic reviews supporting the 2017 ACC/AHA and 2018 ESC/ESH guidelines for the management of hypertension.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the methodological and reporting quality of systematic reviews (SRs) that informed recommendations in the recent American and European hypertension guidelines. DESIGN AND SETTINGS: Meta-epidemiological study. We identified SRs that were cited for class I recommendations based on Level of Evidence-A in the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) and the 2018 European Society of Cardiology/European Society of Hypertension (ESC/ESH) hypertension guidelines. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Methodological and reporting quality of the SRs was assessed using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2) checklist and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist, respectively. RESULTS: A total of 40 SRs was included in the analysis (28 from 2017 ACC/AHA; 22 from 2018 ESC/ESH and 10 were included in both). Based on the AMSTAR-2 assessment, only 7.5% SRs were found to be of high methodological quality, 47.5% were of moderate, each 22.5% were of low and critically low quality. Based on the PRISMA checklist assessment, a mean of 24 items (SD (2.76) were reported appropriately, and only five SRs reported all 27 items appropriately. CONCLUSION: Methodological and reporting quality of SRs were found to vary considerably. Lack of information on the funding source of included studies, use of a protocol, integration of risk of bias assessments while interpreting findings and reporting of excluded studies were major methodological deficiencies.