Institute for Research in Operative Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Cologne, Germany.
Center for Evidence-Based Medicine and Health Care, Catholic University of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia.
Res Synth Methods. 2020 May;11(3):471-483. doi: 10.1002/jrsm.1409. Epub 2020 Apr 22.
It is important that systematic reviews (SRs) are up-to-date, otherwise they cannot be relied upon to guide decision-making in practice and policy. Our aim was to investigate epidemiological, descriptive and reporting characteristics of a cross-section of recently published updates of SRs.
A SR update was defined as a new edition of a SR, either published by the same or new authors. We searched PubMed for SR updates published from January 01, 2016 to January 22, 2018 and included a random sample of n = 100 non-Cochrane updates of SRs on interventions reported in English.
Most SR updates had a corresponding author from the United Kingdom, United States, or Canada (in total 48/100) and dealt with nonpharmacological interventions (63/100). The SR updates were published a median of 5 years (interquartile range [IQR] 3-7) after the previous SR and included a median of 19 (IQR 9-28) studies. 31/100 SR updates reported that the conclusion had changed since the previous version. Only 51/100 SR updates used the term "update" in the title and none reported having based the decision to update the previous SR on an existing method/decision tool. The number of newly included studies and participants and the number of studies and participants included in/from the previous SR were often not reported.
The included non-Cochrane updates were frequently missing important information that would be expected to be present in a SR update. Thus, structured and detailed reporting guidance specific to SR updates is needed. It should focus particularly on appropriate labeling and justification of updates, and how to incorporate information regarding the previous SR.
系统评价（SR）必须是最新的，否则它们就无法用于指导实践和政策决策。我们的目的是调查最近发表的 SR 更新的流行病学、描述性和报告特征。
SR 更新被定义为 SR 的新版本，由同一作者或新作者出版。我们在 PubMed 中搜索了 2016 年 1 月 1 日至 2018 年 1 月 22 日发表的 SR 更新，并纳入了 100 篇以英语报告的干预措施非 Cochrane SR 更新的随机样本。
大多数 SR 更新的通讯作者来自英国、美国或加拿大（共 48/100），且处理非药物干预（63/100）。SR 更新在之前的 SR 发表后中位数 5 年（四分位距 [IQR] 3-7）出版，包含中位数 19 项（IQR 9-28）研究。31/100 的 SR 更新报告结论自上一版本以来发生了变化。只有 51/100 的 SR 更新在标题中使用了“更新”一词，没有报告根据现有方法/决策工具决定更新之前的 SR。新纳入的研究和参与者数量以及之前 SR 中纳入/来自的研究和参与者数量往往没有报告。
所纳入的非 Cochrane 更新经常缺少预计会出现在 SR 更新中的重要信息。因此，需要针对 SR 更新制定结构化和详细的报告指南。它应特别侧重于适当的更新标记和理由，以及如何纳入有关之前 SR 的信息。
