Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov:151:53-64.
doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.07.005. Epub 2022 Aug 4.

Systematic reviews of convalescent plasma in COVID-19 continue to be poorly conducted and reported: a systematic review

Rebecca Whear  1 , Alison Bethel  2 , Rebecca Abbott  2 , Morwenna Rogers  2 , Noreen Orr  3 , Sean Manzi  4 , Obioha C Ukoumunne  4 , Ken Stein  2 , Jo Thompson Coon  2
Affiliations

Systematic reviews of convalescent plasma in COVID-19 continue to be poorly conducted and reported: a systematic review

Rebecca Whear et al. J Clin Epidemiol. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Objectives: To suggest possible approaches to combatting the impact of the COVID-19 infodemic to prevent research waste in future health emergencies and in everyday research and practice.

Study design and setting: Systematic review. The Epistemonikos database was searched in June 2021 for systematic reviews on the effectiveness of convalescent plasma for COVID-19. Two reviewers independently screened the retrieved references with disagreements resolved by discussion. Data extraction was completed by one reviewer with a proportion checked by a second. We used the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews to assess the quality of conduct and reporting of included reviews.

Results: Fifty one systematic reviews are included with 193 individual studies included within the systematic reviews. There was considerable duplication of effort; multiple reviews were conducted at the same time with inconsistencies in the evidence included. The reviews were of low methodological quality, poorly reported, and did not adhere to preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis guidance.

Conclusion: Researchers need to conduct, appraise, interpret, and disseminate systematic reviews better. All in the research community (researchers, peer-reviewers, journal editors, funders, decision makers, clinicians, journalists, and the public) need to work together to facilitate the conduct of robust systematic reviews that are published and communicated in a timely manner, reducing research duplication and waste, increasing transparency and accessibility of all systematic reviews.

Keywords: COVID-19; Convalescent plasma; Infodemic; Research waste; Solutions; Systematic review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA flow diagram.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Relationship between publication year and study type for all studies in the 51 systematic reviews.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Network diagram of systematic reviews and primary studies. The systematic reviews are labeled with the surname of the first author.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Summary of the infodemic problem, context, and suggested approaches.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Glasziou P.P., Sanders S., Hoffmann T. Waste in covid-19 research. BMJ. 2020;369:m1847. - PubMed
    1. Raynaud M., Zhang H., Louis K., Goutaudier V., Wang J., Dubourg Q., et al. COVID-19-related medical research: a meta-research and critical appraisal. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2021;21(1):1. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ioannidis J.P.A., Salholz-Hillel M., Boyack K.W., Jeroen B. The rapid, massive growth of COVID-19 authors in the scientific literature. R Soc Open Sci. 2021;8(9):210389. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Abbott R., Bethel A., Rogers M., Whear R., Orr N., Shaw L., et al. Characteristics, quality and volume of the first 5 months of the COVID-19 evidence synthesis infodemic: a meta-research study. BMJ Evid Based Med. 2021;27(3):169–177. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dotto L., de Azevedo Kinalski M., Soares Machado P., Pereira G.K.R., Sarkis-Onofre R., Fernandes dos Santos M.B. The mass production of systematic reviews about COVID-19: an analysis of PROSPERO records. J Evidence-Based Med. 2021;14(1):56–64. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types