The citation status of systematic reviews on imaging diagnosis in clinical practice guidelines: a cross-sectional study

Tags: Poster
Wang M1, Chen Y2, Li L1, Lei J1
1The First Hospital of Lanzhou University, China, 2Evidence-Based Medicine Center of Lanzhou University, China

Background: The development of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) should use and cite systematic review evidence.

Objectives: To investigate the citation status of systematic reviews on imaging diagnosis in clinical practice guidelines and provide a guide for the development of imaging diagnosis guidelines.

Methods: We electronically searched the PubMed database to collect systematic reviews on imaging diagnosis. The date was limited from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2012. Two reviewers independently screened literature and extracted data. The citation data of included systematic reviews were obtained on the Web of Science. The citation analysis method was used to analyze the citation frequency of systematic reviews on imaging diagnosis in CPGs.

Results: We included 292 systematic reviews on imaging diagnosis, of which 94% (275/292) were indexed by Science Citation Index. The total citation frequency of these systematic reviews was 5413 (median: 20, range: 0 to 131). Twenty-eight per cent (78/275) were cited by CPGs. Of which, 7% (19/275) were used as the source of the evidence of recommendations in CPGs.

Conclusions: The ratio of systematic reviews cited by CPGs is low, the ratio of being the source of evidence of recommendations of systematic reviews in CPGs is lower, and furthermore, the citation is time-delayed.