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A Novel Method for Involving Women of Color at High Risk for Preterm Birth in Research Priority Setting
Published on: January 12, 2018
Identification and Assessment of Systematic Reviews for Evidence-Based Guideline Recommendations on Follow-Up of
Gabriel Kaiser1, Marie Kayser1, Marie Babel1
1Department of Pediatrics, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Aim:
This mapping review presents a systematic approach identifying aggregated evidence and assessing methodological quality.
Methods:
MEDLINE (via Ovid), Epistemonikos and the Cochrane database were searched for systematic reviews, with or without meta-analyses, published from 2010 to May 6, 2025, addressing any interventions, prognosis, risks, incidence, prevalence, or diagnosis in preterm or very low birth weight children. To ensure quality, we included only those that searched at least two databases, assessed risk of bias, and defined a clear research question according to the PICO framework. Systematic reviews of interventions were assessed for methodological quality using AMSTAR 2. Those on risks, prognosis, prevalence, diagnostics, and qualitative research were assessed with ROBIS following a preliminary quality screening.
Results:
Of 8000 references, 643 full texts were assessed, 239 systematic reviews met inclusion criteria: 42 interventional, 183 prognosis, risks, incidence and prevalence, 11 diagnostic, and 3 qualitative. Among interventional systematic reviews, seven showed high- or moderate-quality. Out of 197 systematic reviews, preliminary quality screening excluded 192 systematic reviews; ROBIS identified two high-quality prognosis and risk reviews out of five.
Conclusion:
Quality of data on post discharge follow-up in preterm-born children is poor. Preliminary screening improves efficiency by limiting assessment time spent on low-quality reviews.
