Evidence Mapping and Quality Assessment of Systematic Reviews in Dental Traumatology: A 54 Months Update

Abstract

Background/aims: This update of previously conducted evidence mapping and quality analysis of systematic reviews related to dental traumatology aimed to assess the distribution of systematic reviews published in a period of past 54 months in various domains and subdomains and evaluate their quality. An attempt was also made to compare the trends of methodological and quality characteristics between the two Evidence Mapping studies.

Methods: An a priori protocol was prepared as per the recommendations of Global Evidence Mapping and registered in Open Science Framework. The boundary conditions were defined and a search was performed electronically by two authors on November 30, 2024 in PubMed, LILACS, Web of Science, Cochrane, Scopus, and EMBASE without any restrictions. EndNote Online was used to remove the duplicates and perform screening of titles and abstracts and the full texts. Data extraction was performed using a self-designed sheet and analyzed by the research group. AMSTAR-2 and ROBIS tools were used for assessing the quality of included systematic reviews.

Results: The evidence mapping included 66 systematic reviews that could be distributed in six domains. The maximum number of them were in Epidemiologic domain (n = 21) and the subdomain of "treatment protocols of permanent teeth" (n = 14). The conclusion of 27 SRs was graded as inconclusive. An a priori registration of protocol was done in 55 SRs, majority of reviews did not have any restrictions in search, and gray literature search was done in 39 SRs. The most common risk of bias (ROB) tool used was the Jonna Briggs Institute's Critical Appraisal Checklist. The ROB of 51 SRs was low as per ROBIS, and high level of confidence was exhibited by 24 SRs as per AMSTAR-2.

Conclusion: The highest number of SRs was seen in the domain of epidemiology, followed by therapeutic and prognostic domains. As per ROBIS, 77.27% of SRs were found to have low ROB with a high level of confidence in 39.4% SRs as per AMSTAR-2. There was significant improvement in methodological and quality trends as compared to the previous Evidence Mapping.