A systematic review is a rigorous process that involves identifying, selecting, and synthesizing available evidence pertaining to an a priori–defined research question. The resulting evidence base may be summarized qualitatively or through a …
To increase transparency in research, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors required, in 2005, prospective registration of clinical trials as a condition to publication. However, many trials remain unregistered or retrospectively …
Meta-analysis synthesizes a body of research investigating a common research question. Outcomes from meta-analyses provide a more objective and transparent summary of a research area than traditional narrative reviews. Moreover, they are often used …
Proprietary genetic datasets are valuable for boosting the statistical power of genome-wide association studies (GWASs), but their use can restrict investigators from publicly sharing the resulting summary statistics. Although researchers can resort …
This paper presents a generalized registration form for systematic reviews that can be used when currently available forms are not adequate. The form is designed to be applicable across disciplines (i.e., psychology, economics, law, physics, or any …
Numerous biases are believed to affect the scientific literature, but their actual prevalence across disciplines is unknown. To gain a comprehensive picture of the potential imprint of bias in science, we probed for the most commonly postulated …
P values represent a widely used, but pervasively misunderstood and fiercely contested method of scientific inference. Display items, such as figures and tables, often containing the main results, are an important source of P values. We conducted a …
Objective To investigate the replication validity of biomedical association studies covered by newspapers. Methods We used a database of 4723 primary studies included in 306 meta-analysis articles. These studies associated a risk factor with a …
Background The increased use of meta-analysis in systematic reviews of healthcare interventions has highlighted several types of bias that can arise during the completion of a randomised controlled trial. Study publication bias and outcome reporting …
When used together, systematic review methods and meta-analysis can produce comprehensive, accurate, and useful summaries of empirical evidence to answer questions that are relevant for policy, practice, and future research. Systematic reviews and …