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A Readers' Guide to Assessing Literature Reviews and Meta-analyses

Susan D. Ross, MD, FRCPC

Arch Intern Med. 2001;161:1041-1046.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

IN THE SETTING of increasing concern about drug safety and a burgeoning literature on the subject, the objective of this article is to provide readers with a practical guide to critically appraising reviews and meta-analyses of source studies of drug-related adverse events. A critique of a recent highly publicized meta-analysis of adverse drug reactions is used as a case study here to highlight several contentious issues. The published literature on drug-related adverse events is fraught with problems, starting with the original reports and extending to systematic reviews and meta-analyses thereof. A fundamental and universal taxonomy does not exist. For original reports, prospective protocols are missing; event ascertainment is poorly described and executed; and analytic methods are questionable and lead to problems of imprecise estimates, multiple correlations, and generalizability of results. It is recommended that for reviews and syntheses of original reports, explicit search methods and . . . [Full Text of this Article]

OBJECTIVE


TAXONOMY

PROSPECTIVE PROTOCOL

LITERATURE SEARCH

STUDY SELECTION
Study Characteristics

Event Ascertainment

ANALYTIC METHODS
Heterogeneity and Bias

Precision

Multiple Correlations

INTERPRETATION AND GENERALIZABILITY OF RESULTS

CONCLUSIONS
MetaWorks, Inc
10 President's Landing
Medford, MA 02155
(e-mail: SDR@Metawork.com)

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