Systematic reviews synthesized evidence without consistent quality assessment of primary studies examining epidemiology of chronic diseases
| Autor: | Robert L. Kane, Tatyana Shamliyan, Stacy Jansen |
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| Rok vydání: | 2011 |
| Předmět: |
Research Report
medicine.medical_specialty Pathology Quality Assurance Health Care Epidemiology External validity Risk Factors medicine Prevalence Humans Internal validity Selection Bias Evidence-Based Medicine Quality assessment business.industry Incidence Confounding Reproducibility of Results Evidence-based medicine United States Review Literature as Topic Systematic review Research Design Family medicine Chronic Disease Observational study Health Services Research business |
| Zdroj: | Journal of clinical epidemiology. 65(6) |
| ISSN: | 1878-5921 |
| Popis: | Objective To evaluate how systematic reviews assess the quality of primary studies of incidence, prevalence, or risk factors for chronic diseases. Study Design and Setting We searched several databases, identified 145 systematic reviews, and evaluated methods of quality assessment and quantitative synthesis of evidence by external or internal validity or overall quality of primary studies. Results Of 145 reviews, 54 (37%) reported a planned quality assessment of primary studies with checklists or scales and 26 (18%) reported evaluation of some selected quality criteria. Thirty-nine percent of reviews judged appropriateness of sampling and proper controls for confounding factors in primary studies. Twelve percent synthesized evidence by overall quality, 17% by design, 42% by criteria of internal validity, and 24% by external validity of primary studies. Masking of quality assessment was conducted on 2.1% of reviews and 4% tested interobserver agreement for quality assessment. Conclusion Evaluation of internal and external validity of primary studies is uncommon in systematic reviews of studies of incidence, prevalence, or risk factors for chronic diseases. Inconsistent quality assessment practices reflect the absence of uniformly accepted standards and tools to examine the quality of observational nontherapeutic studies. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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