Reporting quality of meta-analyses in acupuncture: Investigating adherence to the PRISMA statement

Although Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Acupuncture (PRISMA-A) checklists had been in use for several years, compliance rate was still not optimistic. We investigated the quality of reporting for meta-analyses of acupuncture published in PubMed. We compared the compliance rate for the quality of reporting following the publication of both the PRISMA and PRISMA-A recommendations. We searched PubMed for articles published between January 1st, 2020 and December 31st, 2022, after Endnote X9 document management software and manual screening, 180 meta-analyses of acupuncture were selected as samples. The PRISMA, and PRISMA-A checklists were used to evaluate the quality of the literature. Data were collected using a standard form. Pearson χ2 test and/or Fisher exact test were used to assess differences in reporting among groups. Logistic regression is used to calculate OR and its 95% CI. The total reported compliance rate of all items in the PRISMA list was 61.3%, and the reported compliance rate of the items with a compliance rate of <50% accounted for 35.71% of the total items. The total reported coincidence rate of all items in the PRISMA-A was 56.9%, and the reported coincidence rate of the items with a reported coincidence rate of <50% accounted for 31.25% of all the items. The compliance rate of the published research to PRISMA or PRISMA-A has no statistical difference between the Journal Citation Reports partition (Quarter1-Quarter2) and Journal Citation Reports partition (Quarter3-Qurater4) (P > .05). Regardless of the level of journals published, have obvious deficiencies in the details of the study, the reference basis for the design of the study, the analysis method, the degree of strictness, the scientific nature, and other aspects. We must strengthen education on the standardization of research reports.