Quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in dermatology

Abstract

Introduction

Although the number of published systematic reviews and meta-analyses in dermatology has increased over the past decade, their quality is unknown.

Objective

The objective of this study was to determine the change in risk of bias, methodological quality and reporting quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in dermatology between 2010 and 2019.

Methods

We conducted a comparative study of systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in the 10 highest-ranked dermatology journals in 2010 and 2019. Studies were identified through electronic searches of MEDLINE, Embase, and eight other bibliographic databases. Risk of bias and methodological quality were assessed in duplicate with the risk of bias in systematic reviews (ROBIS) and A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews-2 (AMSTAR-2) tools, respectively, with the latter only applied to studies of interventions. Reporting quality was assessed with the Preferred Reporting Items of systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2009 and PRISMA for abstracts (PRISMA-A) 2013 statements.

Results

We included 27 systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in 2010 and 127 published in 2019. There was no evidence of a difference in the proportion of systematic reviews and meta-analyses at high/unclear risk of bias with ROBIS (Fisher's exact test = 1.00) or critically low methodological quality using AMSTAR-2 (Fisher's exact test = 0.456), between 2010 and 2019. There was evidence of a difference in proportion of PRISMA (t(26) = 2.7, p = 0.01), and very strong evidence of a difference in proportion of PRISMA-A (t(26) = 4.2, p < 0.001) checklist items adequately reported between 2010 and 2019. The difference in mean proportion of PRISMA checklist items adequately reported was 3.6 items more (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.8–5.4 items more) in 2019 (mean = 10.7 items, SD = 2.4 items) than in 2010 (mean = 7.1 items, SD = 2.9 items), and of PRISMA-A checklist items adequately reported was 1.1 items more (95% CI: 0.2–2.0 items more) in 2019 (mean = 5.6 items, SD = 1.5 items) than in 2010 (mean = 4.4 items, SD = 1.7 items)

Conclusions

No improvement was observed in the overall methodological quality of included systematic reviews and meta-analyses; however, there was strong evidence of improvement in the overall reporting quality.