Table 1.
Characteristics of the selected systematic reviews
| All reviews N = 98 | Cochrane reviews N = 57 | Non-Cochrane reviews N = 41 | Tobacco use N = 49 | HIV infection N = 49 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type of treatment, N (%) | |||||
| Pharmacological treatment | 33 (34) | 23 (40) | 10 (24) | 17 (35) | 16 (33) |
| Nonpharmacological treatment | 59 (60) | 28 (49) | 31 (76) | 28 (57) | 31 (63) |
| Both treatments | 6 (6) | 6 (10) | 0 | 4 (8) | 2 (4) |
| Therapist-dependent intervention, N (%) | 45 (46) | 25 (44) | 20 (49) | 23 (47) | 22 (45) |
| Method of the review, N (%) | |||||
| Quantitative analysis | 79 (81) | 44 (77) | 35 (85) | 40 (82) | 39 (79.6) |
| Number of studies included, median (Q1-Q3) | 14 (7-25) | 9 (5-21) | 18 (12-27) | 14 (7-26) | 14 (7-20) |
| Trial design, N (%) | |||||
| Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) only | 68 (69) | 46 (81) | 22 (54) | 42 (86) | 26 (53) |
| RCTs + nonrandomized trials | 24 (24) | 8 (14) | 16 (39) | 5 (10) | 19 (39) |
| Nonrandomized trials only | 6 (6) | 3 (5) | 3 (7) | 2 (4) | 4 (8) |
| Reporting of key data to describe included studies in a table or figure, N (%) | 87 (88) | 53 (93) | 33 (88) | 40 (82) | 46 (94) |
| Internal validity assessment, N (%) | 71 (72) | 53 (91) | 18 (44) | 35 (86) | 36 (73) |
| Quality score | 11 (11) | 1 (2) | 10 (24) | 10 (20) | 1 (2) |
| Allocation sequence generation | 44 (52) | 37 (65) | 7 (17) | 30 (61) | 14 (29) |
| Allocation concealment | 59 (58) | 51 (89) | 8 (19) | 31 (63) | 28 (57) |
| Blinding of participants | 21 (21) | 17 (30) | 4 (10) | 6 (12) | 15 (31) |
| Blinding of care providers | 22 (22) | 18 (32) | 4 (10) | 5 (10) | 17 (35) |
| Blinding of outcome assessors | 10 (10) | 6 (10) | 4 (15) | 4 (12) | 6 (12) |
| Intent-to-treat analysis | 13 (13) | 8 (14) | 5 (12) | 5 (10) | 8 (16) |
| Method to account for internal validity, N (%) | |||||
| Sensitivity analysis | 8 (8) | 3 (5) | 5 (12) | 4 (8) | 4 (8) |
| Weighting factor | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Meta regression | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Narrative discussion of internal validity | 52 (52) | 48 (84) | 4 (10) | 23 (47) | 26 (53) |
Q1-Q3 = interquartile range 1 to 3