Oral Growth and Development, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Institute of Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, Turner St., London E1 2 AD, UK.
Department of Orthodontics, University of Athens, Leoforos Eleftheriou Venizelou 30, Athina 10679, Greece.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2014 Jul;67(7):754-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.01.002. Epub 2014 Apr 5.
To compare the methodological quality of systematic reviews (SRs) published in high- and low-impact factor (IF) Core Clinical Journals. In addition, we aimed to record the implementation of aspects of reporting, including Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram, reasons for study exclusion, and use of recommendations for interventions such as Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE).
We searched PubMed for systematic reviews published in Core Clinical Journals between July 1 and December 31, 2012. We evaluated the methodological quality using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) tool.
Over the 6-month period, 327 interventional systematic reviews were identified with a mean AMSTAR score of 63.3% (standard deviation, 17.1%), when converted to a percentage scale. We identified deficiencies in relation to a number of quality criteria including delineation of excluded studies and assessment of publication bias. We found that SRs published in higher impact journals were undertaken more rigorously with higher percentage AMSTAR scores (per IF unit: β = 0.68%; 95% confidence interval: 0.32, 1.04; P < 0.001), a discrepancy likely to be particularly relevant when differences in IF are large.
Methodological quality of SRs appears to be better in higher impact journals. The overall quality of SRs published in many Core Clinical Journals remains suboptimal.
比较发表在高影响因子（IF）和低影响因子（IF）核心临床期刊上的系统评价（SR）的方法学质量。此外，我们旨在记录报告方面的实施情况，包括系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目（PRISMA）流程图、排除研究的原因以及干预措施的推荐意见，如推荐评估、制定和评估（GRADE）。
我们在 2012 年 7 月 1 日至 12 月 31 日期间在 PubMed 上搜索了发表在核心临床期刊上的系统评价。我们使用评估多个系统评价（AMSTAR）工具评估方法学质量。
在 6 个月的时间里，共确定了 327 项干预性系统评价，平均 AMSTAR 评分为 63.3%（标准差，17.1%），转换为百分比后。我们发现存在一些质量标准的缺陷，包括排除研究的描述和评估发表偏倚。我们发现，发表在高影响因子期刊上的 SR 更为严格，AMSTAR 评分百分比更高（每 IF 单位：β=0.68%；95%置信区间：0.32,1.04；P<0.001），这种差异在 IF 差异较大时可能更为显著。
SR 的方法学质量在高影响因子期刊上似乎更好。许多核心临床期刊发表的 SR 的总体质量仍不理想。
