Epidemiology and reporting characteristics of overviews of reviews of healthcare interventions published 2012 –2016: protocol for a systematic review

The objectives are to: (1) investigate the epidemiological, descriptive, and reporting characteristics of a random sample of 100 overviews published from 2012 to 2016 and (2) compare these recently published overviews (2012 –2016) to those published prior to 2012 (based on the prior descriptive analyses).MethodsMedline, EMBASE, and CDSR will be searched for overviews published 2012 –2016, using a validated search filter for overviews. Only overviews written in English will be included. All titles and abstracts will be screened by one review author; those deemed not relevant will be verified by a second person for exclusion. Full-texts will be assessed for inclusion by two re viewers independently. Of those deemed relevant, a random sample of 100 overviews will be selected for inclusion. Data extraction will be either performed by one reviewer with verification by a second reviewer or by one reviewer only depending on the complexity of the item. Discrepancies at any stag e will be resolved by consensus or consulting a third person. Data will be extracted on the epidemiological, descriptive, and reporting characteristics of each overview. Data will be analyzed descriptively. When data are available for both time points (up to 2011 vs. 2012–2016), we will compare ch aracteristics by calculating risk ratios or applying the Mann-Whitney test.DiscussionOverviews are becoming increasingly valuable evidence syntheses, and the number of published overviews is increasing. However...
Source: Systematic Reviews - Category: Global & Universal Source Type: research