The quality of systematic reviews and other synthesis in the time of COVID-19.
Epidemiol Infect
; 149: e182, 2021 08 03.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34340726
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 research has been produced at an unprecedented rate and managing what is currently known is in part being accomplished through synthesis research. Here we evaluated how the need to rapidly produce syntheses has impacted the quality of the synthesis research. Thus, we sought to identify, evaluate and map the synthesis research on COVID-19 published up to 10 July 2020. A COVID-19 literature database was created using pre-specified COVID-19 search algorithms carried out in eight databases. We identified 863 citations considered to be synthesis research for evaluation in this project. Four-hundred and thirty-nine reviews were fully assessed with A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2) and rated as very low-quality (n = 145), low-quality (n = 80), medium-quality (n = 208) and high-quality (n = 151). The quality of these reviews fell short of what is expected for synthesis research with key domains being left out of the typical methodology. The increase in risk of bias due to non-adherence to systematic review methodology is unknown and prevents the reader from assessing the validity of the review. The responsibility to assure the quality is held by both producers and publishers of synthesis research and our findings indicate there is a need to equip readers with the expertise to evaluate the review conduct before using it for decision-making purposes.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Pesquisa
/
Revisões Sistemáticas como Assunto
/
COVID-19
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
/
Systematic_reviews
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2021
Tipo de documento:
Article