Murad Mohammad Hassan, Wang Zhen
Evidence-Based Practice Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
Evid Based Med. 2017 Aug;22(4):139-142. doi: 10.1136/ebmed-2017-110713. Epub 2017 Jul 12.
Published research should be reported to evidence users with clarity and transparency that facilitate optimal appraisal and use of evidence and allow replication by other researchers. Guidelines for such reporting are available for several types of studies but not for meta-epidemiological methodology studies. Meta-epidemiological studies adopt a systematic review or meta-analysis approach to examine the impact of certain characteristics of clinical studies on the observed effect and provide empirical evidence for hypothesised associations. The unit of analysis in meta-epidemiological studies is a study, not a patient. The outcomes of meta-epidemiological studies are usually not clinical outcomes. In this guideline, we adapt items from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) to fit the context of meta-epidemiological studies.
已发表的研究应清晰、透明地报告给证据使用者,以促进对证据的最佳评估和使用,并允许其他研究人员进行重复研究。针对几种类型的研究有此类报告指南,但对于元流行病学方法学研究却没有。元流行病学研究采用系统评价或荟萃分析方法,以检验临床研究的某些特征对观察到的效应的影响,并为假设的关联提供实证证据。元流行病学研究的分析单位是一项研究,而非一名患者。元流行病学研究的结果通常不是临床结果。在本指南中,我们对系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目(PRISMA)中的条目进行了调整,以适应元流行病学研究的背景。