Analysis of quality assessment tools in Campbell systematic reviews

Article type
Authors
li Y1, Chen W2, Liu G3, wei L4, Liu C5, Si L4, Zhang J4, Yang K6
1School of Public Health, Lanzhou University;Evidence-Based Medicine Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University;Key Laboratory of Evidence Based Medicine and Knowledge Translation of Gansu Province
2Philosophy and sociology school, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou
3School of law, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou
4School of Economics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou
5School of Information Science & Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou
6Evidence-Based Medicine Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University;Key Laboratory of Evidence Based Medicine and Knowledge Translation of Gansu Province
Abstract
Background: When producing systematic reviews (systematic review, SR) / Meta analysis (meta-analysis, MA) , assessing the internal validity, the risk of bias or methodological quality of included studies is an important part. With the development of evidence-based medicine, there are many methodological quality assessment tools for Campbell systematic reviews.

Objectives: To evaluate whether and to what extent the new risk-of-bias (ROB) tool has been used in Campbell systematic reviews.

Methods: We searched the Campbell Databases of Systematic Reviews with a topic search. Two reviewers independently selected the reviews. The data involving in essential information, the information about ROB (sequence generation, allocation concealment, blindness, incomplete outcome data, selective reporting and other potential sources of bias) and GRADE were extracted and statistically analysed.

Results: In total , 326 SR were identified, Of which, 250 title, 243 Protocol, 165 review, 69 methods. From the total of 326 articles, 78(23.9%)use Cochrane risk of bias, including methodologies (50,15.3%) and Education (12,3.7%). There are 5 articles using ROB, of which 2 were for education, 2 were for methodology and 1 for social welfare. Five articles using CASP, all from the social welfare field. There were two articles using a modified version of the Campbell Collaboration (IDCG) Risk-of-Bias tool. 207 (63.5%)did not mention the use of risk-of-bias tools.

Conclusions: Most Campbell systematic reviews were protocol .The most used bias tool was Cochrane Risk-of-Bias.There is no uniform standard for the risk-assessment tools evaluated by the Campbell system review so far, so the selection of quality assessment tools in the Campbell systematic reviews should be based on the characteristics of each subject area to produce high- quality systematic reviews.