Epidemiology and Reporting Characteristics of Systematic Reviews of Biomedical Research: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background Systematic reviews (SRs) can help decision makers interpret the deluge of published biomedical literature. However, a SR may be of limited use if the methods used to conduct the SR are flawed, and reporting of the SR is incomplete. To our knowledge, since 2004 there has been no cross-sectional study of the prevalence, focus, and completeness of reporting of SRs across different specialties. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate the epidemiological and reporting characteristics of a more recent cross-section of SRs. Methods and Findings We searched MEDLINE to identify potentially eligible SRs indexed during the month of February 2014. Citations were screened using pre…