The methodological quality and reporting transparency in systematic reviews with meta-analysis in Chinese social science need to be improved
The methodological quality and reporting completeness in systematic reviews with meta-analysis in Chinese social science are currently low. But they show a significant trend of improvement, especially in non-intervention reviews since 2014.
What is this review about?
High-quality reviews and meta-analyses are useful for collecting high-quality evidence for policy makers. However, incomplete report of evidence could mislead investment into ineffective projects with an incomplete evidence. Besides, different methods could result in different conclusions on the same topic, potentially causing confusion for future researchers. This review evaluates the quality of methods and transparency of method used by systematic reviews in social sciences, and investigates their trends over time and influence factors. We include systematic reviews with meta-analysis published in Chinese journals.
What is the aim of this review?
The review aims to evaluate the completeness of reporting of the method, and quality of these method of Chinese social science systematic reviews with meta-analysis, and investigate the trend and factors that may influence their quality and reporting transparency.
What studies are included?
This study included 1048 reviews from Chinese journals, including 412 intervention and 626 non-interventional reviews. These reviews were published between 2009 and 2022.
What are the main findings of this review?
This review indicated that the overall completeness of reporting and methodological quality in both intervention and non-intervention reviews were low, but have shown improvement. particularly in non-interventional reviews since 2014. Common weaknesses identified include a lack of registration, protocol, risk of bias assessment, and data and code sharing. Factors such as the sources of literature, number of authors, publication year, and funding source declaration also influenced the quality of the reviews.
The existing guidelines for the conduct and reporting of reviews primarily concerns reviews for the health sector. Researchers in social science should adapt healthcare reporting guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses so they are applicable to the social sciences. International organizations could publish these guidelines in multiple languages to promote global research. Research funders and journals may also consider requesting evidence producers adhere to these guidelines.
How up-to-date is this review?
The review authors conducted searches for studies up to December 2, 2022.