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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: 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.

Keywords

• a measurement tool to assess systematic reviews-2
• coronavirus disease 2019
• methodological quality
• systematic review
• venous thromboembolism