Is the information of systematic reviews published in nursing journals up-to-date? a cross-sectional study

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Abstract

Background

An up-to-date systematic review is important for researchers to decide whether to embark on new research or continue supporting ongoing studies. The aim of this study is to examine the time taken between the last search, submission, acceptance and publication dates of systematic reviews published in nursing journals.

Methods

Nursing journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports were first identified. Thereafter, systematic reviews published in these journals in 2014 were extracted from three databases. The quality of the systematic reviews were evaluated by the AMSTAR. The last search, submission, acceptance, online publication, full publication dates and other characteristics of the systematic reviews were recorded. The time taken between the five dates was then computed. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the time differences; non-parametric statistics were used to examine the association between the time taken from the last search and full publication alongside other potential factors, including the funding support, submission during holiday periods, number of records retrieved from database, inclusion of meta-analysis, and quality of the review.

Results

A total of 107 nursing journals were included in this study, from which 1070 articles were identified through the database search. After screening for eligibility, 202 systematic reviews were included in the analysis. The quality of these reviews was low with the median score of 3 out of 11. A total of 172 (85.1%), 72 (35.6%), 153 (75.7%) and 149 (73.8%) systematic reviews provided their last search, submission, acceptance and online published dates respectively. The median numbers of days taken from the last search to acceptance and to full publication were, respectively, 393 (IQR: 212–609) and 669 (427–915) whereas that from submission to full publication was 365 (243–486). Moreover, the median number of days from the last search to submission and from submission to online publication were 167.5 (53.5–427) and 153 (92–212), respectively. No significant association were revealed between the time lag and those potential factors.

Conclusion

The median time from the last search to acceptance for systematic reviews published in nursing journals was 393 days. Readers for systematic reviews are advised to check the time taken from the last search date of the reviews in order to ensure that up-to-date evidence is consulted for effective clinical decision-making.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12874-017-0432-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Most cited references 24

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How quickly do systematic reviews go out of date? A survival analysis.

Kaveh Shojania, Margaret Sampson, Mohammed T Ansari … (2007)

Systematic reviews are often advocated as the best source of evidence to guide clinical decisions and health care policy, yet we know little about the extent to which they require updating. To estimate the average time to changes in evidence that are sufficiently important to warrant updating systematic reviews. Survival analysis of 100 quantitative systematic reviews. Systematic reviews published from 1995 to 2005 and indexed in ACP Journal Club. Eligible reviews evaluated a specific drug or class of drug, device, or procedure and included only randomized or quasi-randomized, controlled trials. Quantitative signals for updating were changes in statistical significance or relative changes in effect magnitude of at least 50% involving 1 of the primary outcomes of the original systematic review or any mortality outcome. Qualitative signals included substantial differences in characterizations of effectiveness, new information about harm, and caveats about the previously reported findings that would affect clinical decision making. The cohort of 100 systematic reviews included a median of 13 studies and 2663 participants per review. A qualitative or quantitative signal for updating occurred for 57% of reviews (95% CI, 47% to 67%). Median duration of survival free of a signal for updating was 5.5 years (CI, 4.6 to 7.6 years). However, a signal occurred within 2 years for 23% of reviews and within 1 year for 15%. In 7%, a signal had already occurred at the time of publication. Only 4% of reviews had a signal within 1 year of the end of the reported search period; 11% had a signal within 2 years of the search. Shorter survival was associated with cardiovascular topics (hazard ratio, 2.70 [CI, 1.36 to 5.34]) and heterogeneity in the original review (hazard ratio, 2.15 [CI, 1.12 to 4.11]). Judgments of the need for updating were made without involving content experts. In a cohort of high-quality systematic reviews directly relevant to clinical practice, signals for updating occurred frequently and within a relatively short time.

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External Validation of a Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR)

Beverley Shea, Lex Bouter, Joan Peterson … (2007)

Background Thousands of systematic reviews have been conducted in all areas of health care. However, the methodological quality of these reviews is variable and should routinely be appraised. AMSTAR is a measurement tool to assess systematic reviews. Methodology AMSTAR was used to appraise 42 reviews focusing on therapies to treat gastro-esophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, and other acid-related diseases. Two assessors applied the AMSTAR to each review. Two other assessors, plus a clinician and/or methodologist applied a global assessment to each review independently. Conclusions The sample of 42 reviews covered a wide range of methodological quality. The overall scores on AMSTAR ranged from 0 to 10 (out of a maximum of 11) with a mean of 4.6 (95% CI: 3.7 to 5.6) and median 4.0 (range 2.0 to 6.0). The inter-observer agreement of the individual items ranged from moderate to almost perfect agreement. Nine items scored a kappa of >0.75 (95% CI: 0.55 to 0.96). The reliability of the total AMSTAR score was excellent: kappa 0.84 (95% CI: 0.67 to 1.00) and Pearson's R 0.96 (95% CI: 0.92 to 0.98). The overall scores for the global assessment ranged from 2 to 7 (out of a maximum score of 7) with a mean of 4.43 (95% CI: 3.6 to 5.3) and median 4.0 (range 2.25 to 5.75). The agreement was lower with a kappa of 0.63 (95% CI: 0.40 to 0.88). Construct validity was shown by AMSTAR convergence with the results of the global assessment: Pearson's R 0.72 (95% CI: 0.53 to 0.84). For the AMSTAR total score, the limits of agreement were −0.19±1.38. This translates to a minimum detectable difference between reviews of 0.64 ‘AMSTAR points’. Further validation of AMSTAR is needed to assess its validity, reliability and perceived utility by appraisers and end users of reviews across a broader range of systematic reviews.

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How Can We Support the Use of Systematic Reviews in Policymaking?

John Lavis (2009)

John Lavis discusses how health policymakers and their stakeholders need research evidence, and the best ways evidence can be synthesized and packaged to optimize its use.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Wilson W. S. Tam: (65) 6516 8684 , nurtwsw@nus.edu.sg

Kenneth K. H. Lo: kennethlo12@hotmail.com

Parames Khalechelvam: nurparam@nus.edu.sg

Joey Seah: joeyseah25@gmail.com

Shawn Y. S. Goh: nurgys@nus.edu.sg

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Med Res Methodol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Med Res Methodol

Title: BMC Medical Research Methodology

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2288

Publication date (Electronic): 25 November 2017

Publication date PMC-release: 25 November 2017

Publication date Collection: 2017

Volume: 17

Electronic Location Identifier: 151

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2180 6431, GRID grid.4280.e, Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Level 2, Clinical Research Centre, ; Block MD11, 10 Medical Drive, Singapore, 117597 Singapore

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1937 0482, GRID grid.10784.3a, 4/F, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, ; Shatin, HKSAR Hong Kong

Article

Publisher ID: 432

DOI: 10.1186/s12874-017-0432-3

PMC ID: 5702238

PubMed ID: 29178832

SO-VID: ede047ae-2ec1-44ac-ab4e-dbb93f9c7129

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 27 July 2017

Date accepted : 16 November 2017

Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001352, National University of Singapore;

Award ID: NUHSRO/2014/101/SU/01

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Medicine

Keywords: systematic reviews,quality of reporting,information retrieval,presentation and publication policy,evidence-based nursing

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Medicine

Keywords: systematic reviews, quality of reporting, information retrieval, presentation and publication policy, evidence-based nursing

Is the information of systematic reviews published in nursing journals up-to-date? a cross-sectional study

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Most cited references 24

How quickly do systematic reviews go out of date? A survival analysis.

External Validation of a Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR)

How Can We Support the Use of Systematic Reviews in Policymaking?

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