Abstract

SINGH, Jay P.. Development of the Metareview Assessment of Reporting Quality (MARQ) Checklist. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2012, vol.60, n.4, pp.325-332. ISSN 0120-0011.

Background. Systematic reviews and metaanalysis often come to conflicting conclusions on key issues and have a number of potentially important methodological limitations. A metareview represents one approach to a descriptive investigation of such issues in review literatures; this involves a systematic review of previously published reviews. Metareviews report on the areas that systematic reviews and metaanalyses have covered, investigating the methodological quality of such reviews, comparing methods for reporting results with recommended standards in the field of systematic reviewing and highlighting areas which could benefit from further research. Objective.The present report was aimed at critically examining the reporting quality of available medical metareviews and encouraging the use of such innovative approach to develop an instrument for assessing metareviews' methodological quality. Methods. PsycINFO, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL were searched for previous medical metareviews as of February 11th, 2012. References regarding identified reports and annotated bibliographies were used to supplement the search. Results. Four metareviews meeting the inclusion criteria were identified and descriptively analysed. The first set of standardised metareview reporting guidelines' checklist (metareview assessment of reporting quality MARQ), using quality checklists developed for primary studies and reviews as models, was introduced to enable transparent and consistent reporting of metareview methodology. An average of 15 (SD = 3) MARQ criteria were met when applied to the four metareviews identified during the systematic search. This indicated a moderate level of reporting quality which should be improved in subsequent applications of the methodology by using the standardised checklist. A high level of interrater agreement was found (κ = 0.93). Conclusion. The standardised set of guidelines outlined in this report should assist future researchers in conducting more transparent and methodologically rigorous metareviews.

Keywords : metareview; systematic review; metaanalysis; review.

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