Quality of systematic reviews/meta-analyses in coronavirus disease 2019 and venous thromboembolism: An analysis using a measurement tool to assess systematic reviews-2

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Many systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) have been published regarding the incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, which is acknowledged as high. Therefore, we aimed to assess the methodological quality of any SR/MA involving VTE and COVID-19. METHOD(S) This is a meta-epidemiological study evaluating the methodological quality of SR/MA. A structured search in PubMed and Web of Science was done for all SRs/MAs in VTE and COVID-19 from inception till April 29, 2021. We evaluated the methodological quality using A Measurement Tool to Assess SRs-2 (AMSTAR-2) checklist. RESULT(S) We included 29 SRs/MAs where only one SR/MA was rated as high (3.44%), 12 (41.37%) were rated as moderate, and the rest were rated as low/critically low (55.17%). No statistical significance was observed in Spearman's correlation analysis between the rate of methodological quality and the number of authors, searching period, publication month, and publishing journal's impact factor. CONCLUSION(S) The number of published SRs/MAs in the VTE and COVID-19 subject is rising rapidly. The readers should pay attention to the low methodological quality of most published SRs/MAs. Copyright © 2022 Journal of Applied Hematology.