Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Health policy is very important for policy makers to make right decision and promote population health. The number of systematic reviews (SRs) about China health policy has increased, and there is a need to assess the methodological quality presented in SRs and MAs.
Objective: To analyze the methodological quality of all SRs of China health policy by AMSTAR.
Methods: An electronic literature search of all SRs of China healthy policy from inception to December 2012 was conducted using the following text and keywords in combination both MeSH terms and text words, the search strategy was (meta analysis OR meta analyses OR systematic review* OR overreview) AND (health or policy) in five Chinese databases. The methodological quality was assessed independently by two reviewers by AMSTAR.
Results: Fifty SRs were included. The methodological quality was poor. The CSCD or non-CSCD articles, the fund support, and the published year seem to have little impact on the quality of the SRs, nearly all the items showed no significant difference. The number of the authors may influence the methodological quality, because in the comparison of this group, four items showed significant difference, the item number of which is more than other groups. The details were described in Table 1.
Conclusions: The methodological quality of SRs of China healthy policy was poor, and the use of AMSTAR guideline is recommended to improve quality of SRs in China health policy.
Objective: To analyze the methodological quality of all SRs of China health policy by AMSTAR.
Methods: An electronic literature search of all SRs of China healthy policy from inception to December 2012 was conducted using the following text and keywords in combination both MeSH terms and text words, the search strategy was (meta analysis OR meta analyses OR systematic review* OR overreview) AND (health or policy) in five Chinese databases. The methodological quality was assessed independently by two reviewers by AMSTAR.
Results: Fifty SRs were included. The methodological quality was poor. The CSCD or non-CSCD articles, the fund support, and the published year seem to have little impact on the quality of the SRs, nearly all the items showed no significant difference. The number of the authors may influence the methodological quality, because in the comparison of this group, four items showed significant difference, the item number of which is more than other groups. The details were described in Table 1.
Conclusions: The methodological quality of SRs of China healthy policy was poor, and the use of AMSTAR guideline is recommended to improve quality of SRs in China health policy.
