Quality of systematic reviews in African emergency medicine : a cross-sectional methodological study
Date
2023-03
Authors
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Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH SUMMARY: Introduction: Reliable systematic reviews are essential to inform clinical practice guidelines, policies and further research priorities in Africa. For systematic review findings to be trustworthy, they need to be conducted with methodological rigour and reported transparently. We assessed the methodological quality of systematic reviews published in African emergency medicine journals, comparing them to those published in international emergency medicine journals. Additionally, we describe the types of review literature published in the African journals.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional methodological study of systematic reviews published in selected African and international emergency medicine journals from 2012 to 2021. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they were i) published in one of the top five emergency medicine journals in the African region or internationally, ii) a review article on an emergency medicine topic and iii) published between January 2012 and December 2021 in English or French. We searched PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases and hand-searched selected journals. Two authors screened titles, abstracts and full texts independently and in duplicate to select reviews for inclusion. Data extraction was performed by one reviewer, using a standardised form, after completing a calibration exercise. We described the characteristics of systematic reviews and assessed methodological quality using AMSTAR II.
Results: We identified 34 (37%) African and 511 (54%) international systematic reviews from 92 and 948 review articles respectively across 10 journals. We included all 34 African and a random sample of 100 international systematic reviews. Methodological quality was low or critically low for all the African systematic reviews (n=34, 100%) and all but three international systematic reviews (n=97, 97%). The median number of critical domain weaknesses was 4 (IQR 4;5) and 2 (IQR 2;4) for African and international systematic reviews respectively. The most common weaknesses across both African and international systematic reviews were i) not establishing a priori review protocols, ii) unclear selection of study designs iii) not providing a list of excluded studies and iv) unclear reporting on funding sources for included studies.
Conclusion: Emergency medicine systematic reviews published in African and international journals are lacking in methodological quality. Reporting an a priori protocol, developing a comprehensive search strategy, appropriate evidence synthesis and adequate assessment of the risk of bias, heterogeneity and evidence certainty will improve the quality of systematic reviews.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar.
Description
Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2023.
The published article for this Master's thesis is available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com
The published article for this Master's thesis is available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com