[A systematic evaluation on the quality of meta-analysis in articles published in the Chinese Journal of...

To assess the methodology and quality on Meta-analysis used in papers being published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology.

Computerized literature searching was carried out in Wanfang Medical Online to collect articles that Meta-analysis was used in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology since it was founded till December, 2012. Manual retrieval was also conducted. Two researchers independently screened for literature and extracted data. Disagreements were resolved through discussion or by resort to a third reviewer if consensus was not reached. Qualities on methodologies or on the processes of reporting and reviewing, were evaluated by both AMSTAR and PRISMA scales. Statistical calculations and analyses were performed using SPSS 13.0.

Fifty-five papers on meta-analyses were included in this study. Results on the qualities of methodology or evaluation showed that only 2 articles (3.6%) were rated as high, 35 articles (63.7%) as moderate and 18(32.7%) as low. The quality on methodology being used in literature had improved since 2008. However, there were still some problems seen in the following areas as the list of studies (included and excluded), comprehensive search on literature, quality of the included studies having been assessed and documented, etc. Results on evaluation of quality showed that the included reviews had high quality on the titles of the report, sources of information, summary measures and synthesis of results. However, areas as: structured summary, methods on searching, data collection, risk of bias in individual studies, summary of evidence, limitations, funding etc., were still lack of comprehensive reports.

Articles on Meta-analysis published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology provided substantial evidence for more reliable information on the etiology and risk factors of the studies. However,both of the qualities on methodology and reports in the included literature presented problems at different levels that called for careful improvement.