Methodological quality of systematic reviews and clinical trials on women's health published in a Brazilian evidence-based health journal

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:To assess the quality of systematic reviews and clinical trials on women's health recently published in a Brazilian evidence-based health journal.METHOD:All systematic reviews and clinical trials on women's health published in the last five years in the Brazilian Journal of Evidence-based Health were retrieved. Two independent reviewers critically assessed the methodological quality of reviews and trials using AMSTAR and the Cochrane Risk of Bias Table, respectively.RESULTS:Systematic reviews and clinical trials accounted for less than 10% of the 61 original studies on women's health published in the São Paulo Medical Journal over the last five years. All five reviews were considered to be of moderate quality; the worst domains were publication bias and the appropriate use of study quality in formulating conclusions. All three clinical trials were judged to have a high risk of bias. The participant blinding, personnel and outcome assessors and allocation concealment domains had the worst scores.CONCLUSIONS:Most of the systematic reviews and clinical trials on women's health recently published in a Brazilian evidence-based journal are of low to moderate quality. The quality of these types of studies needs improvement.

Interventional Radiology Clinical Practice Guideline Recommendations for Neurovascular Disorders Are Not Based on High-Quality Systematic Reviews

“…Similar to our findings, the quality of SRs has been found to be low to moderate in fields such as orthopedics, 22 urology, 23 pulmonology, 24,25 gastroenterology, 26 neurology, 27 psychiatry, 10 gynecology, 28 and orthodontics. 29 Common deficits that led to lower quality scores were the lack of assessment of publication bias, lack of declaration of conflicts of interest, and lack of providing an a priori protocol.…”

Análise da qualidade metodológica de revisões sistemáticas para tratamento de disfunções do manguito rotador

“…Thus, it is important to select works with good foundation, high methodological rigor and reliable sources of information for greater efficacy at the time of the therapeutic approach. 6,7 Evidence indicates that systematic reviews using the methodology proposed by the Cochrane collaboration have a greater methodological rigor when compared to studies that do not adopt this methodology. 8,9 Thus, the aim of the present research was to evaluate the methodological quality of Cochrane and non-Cochrane systematic reviews on the treatment of individuals with rotator cuff dysfunctions and to compare, through AMSTAR, the quality of studies found in the Cochrane, PubMed (Publisher: Medline),EMBASE and Qinsight databases…”

“…Desta forma, torna-se importante a seleção de trabalhos com boa fundamentação, alto rigor metodológico e fontes de informação confiáveis para uma maior eficácia no momento da abordagem terapêutica. 6,7 Evidências apontam que as revisões sistemáticas que utilizam a metodologia proposta pela colaboração Cochrane possuem um maior rigor metodológico quando comparadas aos trabalhos que não adotam esta metodologia. 8,9 Desta forma, o objetivo da presentepesquisa foi avaliar a qualidade metodológica das revisões sistemáticas Cochrane e não Cochrane, acerca do tratamento de indivíduos com disfunções do manguito rotador e comparar, através do AMSTAR, a qualidade dos estudos encontrados na base de dados Cochrane, PubMed (Publisher Medline), EMBASE e Qinsight…”