Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Clin Chem. 2019 Feb;65(2):291-301. doi: 10.1373/clinchem.2018.292987. Epub 2018 Sep 20.
We evaluated the completeness of reporting of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) systematic reviews using the recently developed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and MetaAnalyses (PRISMA)-DTA guidelines.
MEDLINE was searched for DTA systematic reviews published October 2017 to January 2018. The search time span was modulated to reach the desired sample size of 100 systematic reviews. Reporting on a per-item basis using PRISMA-DTA was evaluated.
One hundred reviews were included. Mean reported items were 18.6 of 26 (71%; SD = 1.9) for PRISMA-DTA and 5.5 of 11 (50%; SD = 1.2) for PRISMA-DTA for abstracts. Items in the results were frequently reported. Items related to protocol registration, characteristics of included studies, results synthesis, and definitions used in data extraction were infrequently reported. Infrequently reported items from PRISMA-DTA for abstracts included funding information, strengths and limitations, characteristics of included studies, and assessment of applicability. Reporting completeness was higher in higher impact factor journals (18.9 vs 18.1 items; = 0.04), studies that cited PRISMA (18.9 vs 17.7 items; = 0.003), or used supplementary material (19.1 vs 18.0 items; = 0.004). Variability in reporting was associated with author country ( = 0.04) but not journal ( = 0.6), abstract word count limitations ( = 0.9), PRISMA adoption ( = 0.2), structured abstracts ( = 0.2), study design ( = 0.8), subspecialty area ( = 0.09), or index test ( = 0.5). Abstracts with a higher word count were more informative ( = 0.4; < 0.001). No association with word counts was observed for full-text reports ( = -0.03; = 0.06).
Recently published reports of DTA systematic reviews are not fully informative when evaluated against the PRISMA-DTA guidelines. These results should guide knowledge translation strategies, including journal level (e.g., PRISMA-DTA adoption, increased abstract word count, and use of supplementary material) and author level (PRISMA-DTA citation awareness) strategies.
我们使用最近制定的《系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目》(PRISMA)-DTA 指南,评估了诊断测试准确性(DTA)系统评价报告的完整性。
检索 2017 年 10 月至 2018 年 1 月发表的 DTA 系统评价,通过调整检索时间跨度以达到 100 篇系统评价的目标样本量。使用 PRISMA-DTA 逐项评估报告情况。
共纳入 100 篇综述。PRISMA-DTA 摘要的报告条目平均为 18.6 项(71%;标准差=1.9),PRISMA-DTA 摘要的报告条目平均为 5.5 项(50%;标准差=1.2)。结果部分的条目经常报告。与方案注册、纳入研究特征、结果综合以及数据提取中使用的定义相关的条目报告频率较低。PRISMA-DTA 摘要中报告频率较低的条目包括资金信息、优缺点、纳入研究特征和适用性评估。影响因子较高的期刊(18.9 项 vs 18.1 项;=0.04)、引用 PRISMA(18.9 项 vs 17.7 项;=0.003)或使用补充材料(19.1 项 vs 18.0 项;=0.004)的报告完整性更高。报告的变异性与作者国家(=0.04)有关,与期刊(=0.6)、摘要字数限制(=0.9)、PRISMA 采用(=0.2)、结构化摘要(=0.2)、研究设计(=0.8)、亚专业领域(=0.09)或索引测试(=0.5)无关。高字数的摘要更具信息量(=0.4;<0.001)。在全文报告中,未观察到与字数相关的关联(=−0.03;=0.06)。
根据 PRISMA-DTA 指南评估,最近发表的 DTA 系统评价报告内容不够完整。这些结果应指导知识转化策略,包括期刊层面(如 PRISMA-DTA 采用、增加摘要字数和使用补充材料)和作者层面(PRISMA-DTA 引用意识)的策略。