Table 1. Characteristics of the included SRs (n = 701).

	Appropriate PRISMA citation		Citation of PRISMA without complementary citation of other relevant guideline			Total		p-value
	No.	%	No.	%		No.	%
Medical Field
Public Health	44	10	59	22		103	15	<0.001*
Psychiatry/Neurology	28	6	35	13		63	9
Oncology	47	11	41	16		88	13
Other	55	13	33	13		88	13
Obstetrics	30	7	14	5		44	6
General Medicine	85	19	36	14		121	17
General Surgery	30	7	10	4		40	6
Cardiovascular	74	17	19	7		93	13
Orthopedics/Physiotherapy	28	6	10	4		38	5
Dentistry	17	4	6	2		23	3
Number of authors
1–3	114	26	63	24		117	25	0.34*
4–5	152	35	82	31		234	33
≥6	172	39	118	45		290	41
Methodologist Involvement
No	264	60	190	72		454	65	0.001*
Yes	174	40	73	28		247	35
Cited PRISMA article
BMJ	113	26	76	29	189		27	0.79≠
JCE	61	14	27	10	88		13
PLoS Med	159	36	100	38	259		37
IJS	18	4	9	3	27		4
Ann Intern Med	83	19	50	19	133		19
Phys Ther	4	1	1	0	5		1
Reason for citing PRISMA
Reporting	402	92	220	84	622		89	<0.01≠
Flow diagram	23	5	17	6	40		6
Illustrative	3	1	6	2	9		1
Quality assessment	1	0	6	2	7		1
Search strategy	9	2	14	5	23		3
Type of SR
Interventional	356	81	4	2	360		51	<0.001≠
Epidemiological	48	11	236	90	284		41
Diagnostic	34	8	23	9	57		8
Meta-analysis
No	126	29	116	44	242		35	<0.001*
Yes	312	71	147	56	459		65
Total	438	100	263	100	701		100

*Pearson chi², ^≠ Fisher’s exact test.