Table 4 Methodological quality of meta-analyses in other health-care fields assessed by AMSTAR

MacDonald et al.¹³

Urology

49.1% SRs searched at least two databases; 31.6% SRs searched unpublished studies; 45.6% SRs provided a list of included and excluded studies; 63.2% SRs assessed and documented the methodological quality of included studies.

Papageorgiou et al.¹⁴

Orthodontics

20.0% clearly reported only the review question or only the inclusion criteria; 35.5% conducted in duplicate only study selection, but not data extraction; the grey literature was not scanned for relevant articles in 54 reviews (49.1%). 65.5% did not provided excluded studies; 8.2% did not provide included or excluded studies in a list or a table at all.

Seo and Kim¹⁵

Nursing

13.6% SRs were performed in duplicate study selection and data extraction; 18.2% SRs used publications status as an inclusion criterion; 63.6% SRs did not provide information on both included and excluded studies; 13.6% SRs assessed and documented the quality of the included studies and drew an appropriate conclusion reflecting the scientific quality of the included studies; 72.7% SRs appropriately combined the findings of studies using meta-analytic methods.