ArticleAlzheimer's research & therapy2022
Methodological quality of systematic reviews on treatments for Alzheimer's disease: a cross-sectional study.
Article in Alzheimer's research & therapy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews on Treatments for Gastric Cancer: A Cross-Sectional Study.Digestive surgery · 2026Pooled it
- Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews on Treatments for Liver Cancer: A Cross-sectional Study.Journal of hepatocellular carcinoma · 2025Review
- A Methodological Quality Assessment of Meta-Analyses on Sleep Disorder Treatments Using AMSTAR 2.Brain and behavior · 2024Review
- Colocalization of β-Sheets and Carotenoids in Aβ Plaques Revealed with Multimodal Spatially Resolved Vibrational Spectroscopy.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2024Article
- A Cross-Sectional Study Based on Forty Systematic Reviews of Foods with Function Claims (FFC) in Japan: Quality Assessment Using AMSTAR 2.Nutrients · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCarefully conducted systematic reviews (SRs) can provide reliable evidence on the effectiveness of treatment strategies for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Nevertheless, the reliability of SR results can be limited by methodological flaws. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the methodological quality of SRs on AD treatments, along with potentially relevant factors.
methodsTo identify eligible SRs on AD treatments, four databases including the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO were searched. The Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews 2 instrument was used for quality appraisal of SRs. Multivariable regression analyses were used to examine factors related to methodological quality.
resultsA total of 102 SRs were appraised. Four (3.90%) SRs were considered as high quality; 14 (13.7%), 48 (47.1%), and 36 (35.3%) were as moderate, low, and critically low quality, respectively. The following significant methodological limitations were identified: only 22.5% of SRs registered protocols a priori, 6.9% discussed the rationales of chosen study designs, 21.6% gave a list of excluded studies with reasons, and 23.5% documented funding sources of primary studies. Cochrane SRs (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 31.9, 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.81-266.9) and SRs of pharmacological treatments (AOR: 3.96, 95%CI: 1.27-12.3) were related to the higher overall methodological quality of SRs.
conclusionMethodological quality of SRs on AD treatments is unsatisfactory, especially among non-Cochrane SRs and SRs of non-pharmacological interventions. Improvement in the following methodological domains requires particular attention due to poor performance: registering and publishing protocols a priori, justifying study design selection, providing a list of excluded studies, and reporting funding sources of primary studies.
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