Scope for improvement in the quality of reporting of systematic reviews. From the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group (original) (raw)

To assess the quality of reporting in Cochrane musculoskeletal systematic reviews (excluding back and injury reviews). This study assessed all the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group's systematic reviews from Issue 4, 2002, of the Cochrane Library Database of Systematic Reviews. Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed quality. Two assessment tools were used, including an 18 item checklist and flow chart developed by the Quality of Reporting of Meta-analysis (QUOROM) consensus group, and a 10 item scale, the Oxman-Guyatt Overview Quality Assessment Questionnaire (OQAQ). One question on the latter scale (item 10) scores overall quality on a 7 point scale, with high scores indicating superior quality. Data were analyzed using univariate approaches. The 57 systematic reviews assessed were found to have good overall quality, with scores on individual items revealing only minor flaws. Documenting the flow of included and excluded studies and summarizing the results are 2 ar...