Abstract
Objectives:Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRs/MAs) are designed to be rigorous research methodologies that synthesize information and inform practice. An increase in their publication runs parallel to quality concerns and a movement toward standards to improve reporting and methodology. With the goal of informing the guidance librarians provide to SR/MA teams, this study assesses online journal author guidelines from an institutional sample to determine whether these author guidelines address SR/MA methodological quality.Methods:A Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate) search identified SRs/MAs published in 2014–2019 by authors affiliated with a single institution. The AMSTAR 2 checklist was used to develop an assessment tool of closed questions specific to measures for SR/MA methodological quality in author guidelines, with questions added about author guidelines in general. Multiple reviewers completed the assessment.Results:The author guidelines of 141 journals were evaluated. Less than 20% addressed at least one of the assessed measures specific to SR/MA methodological quality. There was wide variation in author guidelines between journals from the same publisher apart from the American Medical Association, which consistently offered in-depth author guidelines. Normalized Eigenfactor and Article Influence Scores did not indicate author guideline breadth.Conclusions:Most author guidelines in the institutional sample did not address SR/MA methodological quality. When consulting with teams embarking on SRs/MAs, librarians should not expect author guidelines to provide details about the requirements of the target journals. Librarians should advise teams to follow established SR/MA standards, contact journal staff, and review SRs/MAs previously published in the journal.
Highlights
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRs/MAs) are rigorous research methodologies that collect information on a focused topic through a transparent and reproducible process
The Web of Science Core Collection included Science Citation Index Expanded (1945–present), Social Sciences Citation Index (2005–present), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (2005–present), Conference Proceedings Citation IndexScience (1994–present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Social Science & Humanities (1994–present), Book Citation Index-Science (2005–present), Book Citation Index-Social Sciences & Humanities (2005–present), Emerging Sources Citation Index (2015–present), Current Chemical Reactions (1985–present), and Index Chemicus (1993–present). This institutional sample provided us with a crosssection of the medical literature that reflected the six most recent and complete years of SR/MA publishing by our user base at the time of data collection
We developed our assessment criteria for author guidelines using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) 2, which is a widely used quality assessment tool for SRs [6]
Summary
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRs/MAs) are rigorous research methodologies that collect information on a focused topic through a transparent and reproducible process. The goal of SRs/MAs is to synthesize the evidence to reach conclusions that inform evidence-based decision making, with MAs including statistical analysis. In evidence-based medicine, SRs/MAs are frequently placed at the top of the hierarchy of evidence and given more weight as a result [1]. As the number of published SRs/MAs has increased, their quality has been questioned. Halevi and Pinotti found an exponential growth in SR publications beginning in 1994, accompanied by topic saturation and a decline in quality and utility [2]. A rise in SR/MA popularity resulted in the development of standards for SR/MA reporting and methodology. The earliest efforts date back to at least 1991, with the validation of the Overview Quality jmla.mlanet.org
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