The number of published systematic reviews of studies of healthcare interventions has increased rapidly and these are used extensively for clinical and policy decisions. Systematic reviews are subject to a range of biases and increasingly include non-randomised studies of interventions. It is important that users can distinguish high quality reviews. Many instruments have been designed to evaluate different aspects of reviews, but there are few comprehensive critical appraisal instruments. AMSTAR was developed to evaluate systematic reviews of randomised trials. In this paper, we report on the updating of AMSTAR and its adaptation to enable more detailed assessment of systematic reviews that include randomised or non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions, or both. With moves to base more decisions on real world observational evidence we believe that AMSTAR 2 will assist decision makers in the identification of high quality systematic reviews, including those based on non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions.

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/358/bmj.j4008.full.pdf

AMSTAR 2: a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews that include randomised or non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions, or both

https://www.commed.vcu.edu/Chronic_Disease/2012/cochranrvwrschbias.pdf

The Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials

The methods and results of systematic reviews should be reported in sufficient detail to allow users to assess the trustworthiness and applicability of the review findings. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was developed to facilitate transparent and complete reporting of systematic reviews and has been updated (to PRISMA 2020) to reflect recent advances in systematic review methodology and terminology. Here, we present the explanation and elaboration paper for PRISMA 2020, where we explain why reporting of each item is recommended, present bullet points that detail the reporting recommendations, and present examples from published reviews. We hope that changes to the content and structure of PRISMA 2020 will facilitate uptake of the guideline and lead to more transparent, complete, and accurate reporting of systematic reviews.

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/372/bmj.n160.full.pdf

PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration: updated guidance and exemplars for reporting systematic reviews.

Cost Effectiveness in Health and Medicine.

Placebo

Systematic reviews in dentistry have been consistently published in the last two decades, although the publication of overviews of these reviews is a more recent phenomenon. Most of these few overviews published use a variety of tools to evaluate the methodological quality of reviews included such as the Glenny, OQAQ, CASP, and AMSTAR tools. Probably, the most used is the AMSTAR checklist that is becoming widely recognized as a reference for evaluating reviews. These overviews identified methodological limitations in different levels: at primary study level (those included in the systematic review) and at systematic review level. Thus, an overview of reviews has a unique advantage of providing at the same time the “big picture” of evidence and an in-depth view of primary studies forming this evidence.

Case Study in Dentistry

"Transferring rejected manuscripts to other journals: A good practice?." Accountability in Research, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2 

Transferring rejected manuscripts to other journals: A good practice?

The study aimed to assess the prevalence of spin in the titles and abstracts of RCTs in dental caries with statistically nonsignificant primary outcomes and to assess the risk indicators which may be associated with spin. Any original publication reporting a two-arm RCT in dental caries with clearly identified statistically nonsignificant primary outcomes published from January 1, 2015 until October 28, 2022 were included. PubMed was searched electronically to identify the eligible publications. The prevalence of spin in titles and abstracts were assessed and categorized into spin patterns based on a pre-determined classification scheme. The association between spin and the potential risk indicators at study, author, journal, institutional, and national level was assessed. A total of 234 eligible RCT publications were included. The prevalence of spin in the titles and abstracts was 3% (95%CI: 2% to 6%) and 79% (95%CI: 74% to 84%), respectively. The most common spin patterns in the results and conclusion sections, respectively, were results focusing on statistically significant within-group comparisons (23%), and conclusions focusing only on statistically significant results without acknowledgment of statistically nonsignificant results for the primary outcomes (26%). The spin was significantly associated with number of study centers (single-center vs. multicenter) (OR=2.131; 95%CI: 1.092 to 4.158; P=0.03), trial designs (non-parallel designs vs. parallel designs) (OR=0.395; 95%CI: 0.193 to 0.810; P=0.01), and overall H index of institutions for last authors (OR=0.998; 95%CI: 0.996 to 0.999; P<0.01), while it was not significantly associated with the other indicators. In the RCT publications with statistically nonsignificant results for primary outcomes in dental caries, the prevalence of spin may be low in the titles but high in the abstracts. Single-center studies with parallel designs and a lower overall H index of institutions for last authors may be more likely to have spin in the abstracts.

/pdf/assessment-of-spin-in-the-abstracts-of-randomized-controlled-2jq5jy77.pdf

Assessment of spin in the abstracts of randomized controlled trials in dental caries with statistically nonsignificant results for primary outcomes: A methodological study.

/pdf/teaching-research-methodology-2l53sk2d.pdf

Teaching research methodology

/pdf/teaching-research-methodology-23rh876c.pdf

Clovis Mariano Faggion

Papers

Case Study in Dentistry

Transferring rejected manuscripts to other journals: A good practice?

Assessment of spin in the abstracts of randomized controlled trials in dental caries with statistically nonsignificant results for primary outcomes: A methodological study.

Teaching research methodology

Teaching research methodology.