ArticleJournal of clinical epidemiology2022
Harms in Systematic Reviews Paper 1: An introduction to research on harms.
Article in Journal of clinical epidemiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Antidepressants for low back pain and spine-related leg pain.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Calorie (energy) labelling for changing selection and consumption of food or alcohol.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Dry eye post-cataract surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC ophthalmology · 2025Pooled it
- Reporting of harms in systematic reviews focused on naltrexone: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Patient harms during delayed access to clinical genetics services. A systematic literature review and synthesis without meta-analysis (SWiM).European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2026Review
- Harms and Negative or Unintended Consequences of Social Prescribing: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- A Framework for Developing Intake and Use Guidance for Dietary Supplement Bioactives.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Review
- Emerging and accumulating safety signals for the use of estrogen among transgender women.Discover mental health · 2025Review
- SPIRIT 2025 explanation and elaboration: updated guideline for protocols of randomised trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Improving the reports of systematic reviews in sexual medicine.The journal of sexual medicine · 2025Article
- CONSORT 2025 explanation and elaboration: updated guideline for reporting randomised trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Complications after benign gynecologic surgery-How are they captured in register-based research? A national register study in Sweden.Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica · 2024Article
- Reporting of adverse events of treatment interventions in multiple myeloma: an overview of systematic reviews.Annals of hematology · 2024Review
- Article
- Influence of lack of blinding on the estimation of medication-related harms: a retrospective cohort study of randomized controlled trials.BMC medicine · 2024Article
- Physical Exercise After Solid Organ Transplantation: A Cautionary Tale.Transplant international : official journal of the European Society for Organ Transplantation · 2024Review
- Interventions for Dry Eye: An Overview of Systematic Reviews.JAMA ophthalmology · 2024Article
- Evaluating safety risks of whole-body cryotherapy/cryostimulation (WBC): a scoping review from an international consortium.European journal of medical research · 2023Article
- Clinical utility of overviews on adverse events of pharmacological interventions.Systematic reviews · 2023Article
- Conducting separate reviews of benefits and harms could improve systematic reviews and meta-analyses.Systematic reviews · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveMost systematic reviews of interventions focus on potential benefits. Common methods and assumptions that are appropriate for assessing benefits can be inappropriate for harms. This paper provides a primer on researching harms, particularly in systematic reviews. STUDY DESIGN AND
settingCommentary describing challenges with assessing harm.
resultsInvestigators should be familiar with various terminologies used to describe, classify, and group harms. Published reports of clinical trials include limited information about harms, so systematic reviewers should not depend on these studies and journal articles to reach conclusions about harms. Visualizations might improve communication of multiple dimensions of harms such as severity, relatedness, and timing.
conclusionThe terminology, classification, detection, collection, and reporting of harms create unique challenges that take time, expertise, and resources to navigate in both primary studies and evidence syntheses. Systematic reviewers might reach incorrect conclusions if they focus on evidence about harms found in published reports of randomized trials of a particular health problem. Systematic reviews could be improved through better identification and reporting of harms in primary studies and through better training and uptake of appropriate methods for synthesizing evidence about harms.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.