ArticleJournal of multidisciplinary healthcare2025
Single-Authored Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: A Bibliometric Analysis of Trends and Alignment with Evidence-Based Medicine Guidelines.
Article in Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses play a key role in evidence-based medical decision-making. However, single authorship in these studies may affect the quality and validity of the results. This study aimed to investigate the trends and characteristics of these articles. Methods: A bibliometric analysis was conducted using the Scopus database to identify systematic reviews and meta-analyses published between 2000 and 2023Article-, author-, and journal-level parameters were assessed. The study followed PRISMA 2020 and PRISMA-S guidelines to ensure transparency in search, screening, and reporting. Results: Two thousand five hundred four articles were identified, with a trend of increasing publication. The average citations per document was 44. Two-thirds of the journals are hosted in Q1 and Q2. Also, 25% of the authors had more than one systematic review or meta-analysis article. Some authors had published several articles in the same journal. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia had the highest contributions to these articles. Male authors accounted for 65.33% and female authors for 34.66%. Conclusion: The persistence of single-authored reviews contradicts international guidelines that emphasize collaborative authorship for methodological rigor. Given that systematic reviews directly inform clinical guidelines and patient care, reinforcing collaborative authorship, along with stricter editorial standards and clearer ethical guidance, is essential to preserve the credibility and reliability of evidence synthesis in evidence-based medicine.
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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.