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Review
. 2023 Feb 27;23(1):53.
doi: 10.1186/s12874-023-01863-2.

Reporting quality of scoping reviews in dental public health

Lara Dotto  1   2 , Mateus Bertolini Fernandes Dos Santos  3 , Rafael Sarkis-Onofre  4
Affiliations
Review

Reporting quality of scoping reviews in dental public health

Lara Dotto et al. BMC Med Res Methodol. .

Abstract

Background: The study aimed to explore reporting characteristics of scoping reviews in dental public health and the impact of some factors on the reporting quality.

Methods: This study searched for dental public health scoping reviews in PubMed and Scopus without year restrictions and restricted to English-language publications. Study selection was undertaken by two reviewers independently. One reviewer, after training, extracted data from included studies considering general study characteristics and reporting characteristics. The impact of PRISMA-ScR publication, journal endorsement, and use of study protocol on the reporting was explored.

Results: Eighty-one scoping reviews were included. Five items presented rates of appropriate reporting higher than 80% considering the overall percentage. Related to the impact of PRISMA-ScR publication, six items were found more often in scoping reviews published after the publication of PRISMA-ScR than in scoping reviews published before the publication of PRISMA-ScR. With regards to journals endorsement, only two reporting characteristics were found more often in scoping reviews published in journals that endorse the PRISMA-ScR statement than in scoping reviews published in non-endorsers journals. Last, regarding the use of the pre-specified protocol, five reporting characteristics presented differences in studies reporting the use of pre-specified protocol than in studies that did not mention the use of a protocol. All differences were statistically significant.

Conclusions: Important information is missing in the included scoping reviews demonstrating crucial reporting problems.

Keywords: Dentistry; Methods; Public health; Reporting; Scoping review.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow diagram of study selection
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The percentage of adequately reported items before and after the PRISMA-ScR statement publication and the overall rate. Each cell is colored according to the reporting using the transformation of three colors: red (0%), yellow (50%), and green (100%)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Results related to the reporting of items before and after the PRISMA-ScR publication (a), the reporting between studies published in journals endorsing the PRISMA-ScR and journals not endorsing the PRISMA-ScR (b) and compared studies reporting the protocol register and studies that did not report the protocol register (c)
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