Table 2.
Characteristics of reviews included in this study. Numbers in parenthesis are percentages
| Characteristics | Systematic review | Narrative review |
|---|---|---|
| Clinically oriented (CO) issuea | 73 (97) | 168 (84) |
| PHPMb issue | 2 (3) | 32 (16) |
| Number of citations | 5461 | 10,000 |
| Methodology reported? | ||
| • Search | 4 (5) | 126 (63) |
| • Selection | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
| • Extraction | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
| • Quality assessment | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
| • Search + selection | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
| • Search + quality assessment | 1 (1.5) | 0 (0) |
| • Search + selection + extraction | 3 (4) | 0 (0) |
| • Search + selection + quality assessment | 4 (5) | 0 (0) |
| • Search + extraction + quality assessment | 1 (1.5) | 0 (0) |
| • Search + selection + extraction + quality assessment | 60 (80) | 0 (0) |
| • No methodology reported | 2 (3) | 74 (37) |
aCO issue: any review intended to address the management of a clinical condition (including also any measure to prevent disease). It includes reviews analysing the effectiveness, side-effects of interventions or both, effectiveness of screening etc
bPHPM issue: any review intended to generate hypotheses or facilitate discussion in the medical community