TY - JOUR
T1 - Biomedical and public health reviews and meta-analyses in Ethiopia had poor methodological quality
T2 - overview of evidence 1970 to 2018
AU - Habtewold, Tesfa Dejenie
AU - Alemu, Sisay Mulugeta
AU - Mohammed, Shimels Hussien
AU - Endalamaw, Aklilu
AU - Mohammed, Mohammed Akibu
AU - Teferra, Andreas A
AU - Tura, Abera Kenay
AU - Asefa, Nigus Gebremedhin
AU - Tegegne, Balewgizie Sileshi
N1 - Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - OBJECTIVES: The aims of this overview are to assess the trend of narrative and systematic reviews in Ethiopia, examine their methodological quality and suggest future directions for improvement.STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: All narrative reviews and systematic reviews with or without a meta-analysis on topics associated with Ethiopia irrespective of place of publication and authors affiliation were included. The International Narrative Systematic assessment (INSA) for narrative reviews and A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2) for systematic reviews with or without a meta-analysis were used for quality appraisal. Fisher's exact test at the p-value threshold of 0.05 was used to investigate associated factors of methodological quality.RESULTS: Of 106 articles reviewed, 54 (50.9%) were narrative reviews, 17 (16%) were systematic reviews and 35 (33.1%) were systematic reviews with meta-analyses. Among 48 systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis, only five (10.4%) were registered their protocol, four (8.3%) justified the selection of the study design for inclusion and none of them reported sources of funding for the primary studies. Overall, 55.3% of narrative reviews and 75% of systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis had poor methodological quality.CONCLUSIONS: Although publication rate of narrative and systematic reviews has risen in Ethiopia, half of the narrative reviews and three-quarters of the systematic reviews had poor methodological quality.
AB - OBJECTIVES: The aims of this overview are to assess the trend of narrative and systematic reviews in Ethiopia, examine their methodological quality and suggest future directions for improvement.STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: All narrative reviews and systematic reviews with or without a meta-analysis on topics associated with Ethiopia irrespective of place of publication and authors affiliation were included. The International Narrative Systematic assessment (INSA) for narrative reviews and A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2) for systematic reviews with or without a meta-analysis were used for quality appraisal. Fisher's exact test at the p-value threshold of 0.05 was used to investigate associated factors of methodological quality.RESULTS: Of 106 articles reviewed, 54 (50.9%) were narrative reviews, 17 (16%) were systematic reviews and 35 (33.1%) were systematic reviews with meta-analyses. Among 48 systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis, only five (10.4%) were registered their protocol, four (8.3%) justified the selection of the study design for inclusion and none of them reported sources of funding for the primary studies. Overall, 55.3% of narrative reviews and 75% of systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis had poor methodological quality.CONCLUSIONS: Although publication rate of narrative and systematic reviews has risen in Ethiopia, half of the narrative reviews and three-quarters of the systematic reviews had poor methodological quality.
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.01.011
DO - 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.01.011
M3 - Review article
C2 - 30721723
SN - 0895-4356
VL - 109
SP - 90
EP - 98
JO - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
JF - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
ER -