The reporting characteristics of Campbell Systematic Reviews Using PRISMA - An update of 2013-2016

Article type
Authors
Huang P1, Duan X1, Feng R1, Zhao X1, Bai Z2
1Evidence-Based Medicine Center of Lanzhou University
2Chinese Evidence-based Social Work Research &Implementation Center,Public Affair School,Nanjing University of Science&Technology
Abstract
Background: Campbell Systemic Review (C2 review) mainly involves crime and justice, international development, education, social welfare. C2 Reviews contribute a lot to making decisions in these fields .But we don’t know if these reviews are reported in a normalised way, and we didn’t find any study to evaluate the reporting characteristics. So we evaluated the reporting characteristics of these reviews in 2012. This is an update version.

Objectives: To update the evaluation of the reporting characteristics of C2 review associated with education, international development, social welfare, crime and justice.

Methods: We downloaded all the studies about the following four fields: crime and justice, international development, education, social welfare in Campbell Library from 2013 to 2016.Two researchers evaluated the reporting characteristic of C2 review independently using PRISMA.

Results: 49 studies met inclusion criteria and all were downloaded: 8(16.3%) articles about crime and justice, 9 (18.3%) articles about international development,19 (38.8%) articles about social welfare ,7(14.3%) articles about education,4 (8.2%) articles referring to both education and international development,1 (2%) article referring to both international development and social welfare,1 (2%) article referring to both international development and crime and justice. Of these studies, 2(4.1%) had updated. On the whole, the reporting characteristic of C2 review is good. About 89.8% articles reported 'Y' in 20 items. But for some of the items, the reporting characteristics were not good. Only 49% reported 'Y' in 'Additional analysis. Only 36.7% reported 'Y' in 'Protocol and registration'.

Conclusions: Generally speaking, the reporting characteristic of C2 review is good, but for some items’ normalisation like 'Additional analysis' and 'Protocol and registration' should be improved.