Department of Preventive Restorative and Pediatric Dentistry, University of Bern, Switzerland.
J Appl Oral Sci. 2011 Oct;19(5):440-7. doi: 10.1590/s1678-77572011000500002.
Systematic reviews are not an assembly of anecdotes but a distillation of current best available evidence on a particular topic and as such have an important role to play in evidence-based healthcare. A substantial proportion of these systematic reviews focus on interventions, and are able to provide clinicians with the opportunity to understand and translate the best available evidence on the effects of these healthcare interventions into clinical practice. The importance of systematic reviews in summarising and identifying the gaps in evidence which might inform new research initiatives is also widely acknowledged. Their potential impact on practice and research makes their methodological quality especially important as it may directly influence their utility for clinicians, patients and policy makers. The objectives of this study were to identify systematic reviews of oral healthcare interventions published in the Journal of Applied Oral Science (JAOS) and to evaluate their methodological quality using the evaluation tool, AMSTAR.
Potentially eligible systematic reviews in JAOS were identified through an electronic search of the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO). Details of the relevant aspects of methodology as reported in these systematic reviews were extracted from the full text publications. Methodological quality was assessed independently by two reviewers using the AMSTAR questionnaire.
Five systematic reviews were identified, one of which was subsequently excluded as it was a review of a diagnostic test. Summary AMSTAR scores for the four included reviews were: 1, 5, 2 and 4 out of a maximum score of 11 (range 1-5, mean 3) with only one of the reviews scoring 5.
AMSTAR evaluation of the methodological quality of the relatively small number of systematic reviews published in JAOS illustrated that there was room for improvement. Pre-publication and editorial appraisal of future systematic reviews might benefit from the application of tools such as AMSTAR and is to be recommended.
系统评价不是轶事的集合，而是对特定主题当前最佳可用证据的提炼，因此在循证医疗保健中具有重要作用。这些系统评价中有相当一部分侧重于干预措施，使临床医生有机会了解和转化这些医疗干预措施效果的最佳可用证据，并将其转化为临床实践。系统评价在总结和确定可能为新的研究计划提供信息的证据差距方面的重要性也得到了广泛认可。它们对实践和研究的潜在影响使得其方法学质量尤为重要，因为它可能直接影响其对临床医生、患者和决策者的实用性。本研究的目的是确定发表在应用口腔科学杂志（JAOS）上的口腔保健干预措施的系统评价，并使用评估工具 AMSTAR 对其方法学质量进行评估。
通过在科学电子图书馆在线（SciELO）上进行电子搜索，确定 JAOS 中可能符合条件的系统评价。从系统评价的全文出版物中提取报告的相关方法学细节。两名评审员独立使用 AMSTAR 问卷评估方法学质量。
确定了 5 篇系统评价，其中 1 篇因是诊断测试的综述而被排除。纳入的 4 篇综述的综合 AMSTAR 评分分别为：1、5、2 和 4（满分 11 分，范围 1-5，平均 3），只有 1 篇综述评分为 5。
对 JAOS 发表的相对少量系统评价的方法学质量进行 AMSTAR 评估表明，仍有改进的空间。未来系统评价的预发表和编辑评估可能受益于 AMSTAR 等工具的应用，这是值得推荐的。
