Department of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Departamento de Apoyo en Rehabilitación Cardiopulmonar Integral, Instituto Nacional del Tórax, Santiago, Chile; Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, 7591538, Chile; INTRehab Research Group, Instituto Nacional del Tórax, Santiago, Chile.
Faculty of Health Sciences Brandenburg, Brandenburg Medical School (Theodor Fontane), Institute for Health Services and Health Systems Research, Rüdersdorf, Germany; Center for Health Services Research, Brandenburg Medical School (Theodor Fontane), Rüdersdorf, Germany.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2024 Jun;170:111328. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2024.111328. Epub 2024 Mar 19.
The conduct of systematic reviews (SRs) and overviews share several similarities. However, because the unit of analysis for overviews is the SRs, there are some unique challenges. One of the most critical issues to manage when conducting an overview is the overlap of data across the primary studies included in the SRs. This metaresearch study aimed to describe the frequency of strategies to manage the overlap in overviews of exercise-related interventions.
A systematic search in MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), Cochrane Library, Epistemonikos, and other sources was conducted from inception to June 2022. We included overviews of SRs that considered primary studies and evaluated the effectiveness of exercise-related interventions for any health condition. The overviews were screened by two authors independently, and the extraction was performed by one author and checked by a second. We found 353 overviews published between 2005 and 2022 that met the inclusion criteria.
One hundred and sixty-four overviews (46%) used at least one strategy to visualize, quantify, or resolve overlap, with a matrix (32/164; 20%), absolute frequency (34/164; 21%), and authors' algorithms (24/164; 15%) being the most used methods, respectively. From 2016 onwards, there has been a trend toward increasing the use of some strategies to manage overlap. Of the 108 overviews that used some strategy to resolve the overlap, ie, avoiding double or multiple counting of primary study data, 79 (73%) succeeded. In overviews where no strategies to manage overlap were reported (n = 189/353; 54%), 16 overview authors (8%) recognized this as a study limitation.
Although there is a trend toward increasing its use, only half of the authors of the overviews of exercise-related interventions used a strategy to visualize, quantify, or resolve overlap in the primary studies' data. In the future, authors should report such strategies to communicate more valid results.
系统评价（SR）和综述的实施有许多相似之处。然而，由于综述的分析单位是 SR，因此存在一些独特的挑战。当进行综述时，最关键的问题之一是管理纳入 SR 的原始研究中的数据重叠。这项元研究旨在描述管理与运动干预相关的综述中数据重叠的策略的使用频率。
从 2005 年至 2022 年 6 月，我们在 MEDLINE（Ovid）、Embase（Ovid）、Cochrane 图书馆、Epistemonikos 和其他来源进行了系统搜索。我们纳入了考虑原始研究并评估与运动相关的干预措施对任何健康状况的有效性的综述。这两个作者独立对综述进行了筛选，一个作者进行了提取，第二个作者进行了检查。我们发现了 2005 年至 2022 年间发表的 353 篇符合纳入标准的综述。
164 篇综述（46%）至少使用了一种策略来可视化、量化或解决重叠问题，其中矩阵（32/164；20%）、绝对频率（34/164；21%）和作者的算法（24/164；15%）是最常用的方法。自 2016 年以来，管理重叠的一些策略的使用趋势有所增加。在 108 篇使用某种策略解决重叠问题的综述中，即避免原始研究数据的重复或多次计数，有 79 篇（73%）成功。在没有报告管理重叠策略的 189 篇综述中（n=353；54%），16 位综述作者（8%）认为这是研究的局限性。
尽管管理重叠的策略使用趋势有所增加，但只有一半的与运动干预相关的综述的作者使用了策略来可视化、量化或解决原始研究数据中的重叠。未来，作者应报告此类策略，以传达更有效的结果。
