The development of a critical appraisal tool for use in systematic reviews addressing questions of prevalence.

By Z. Munn, Sandeep Moola, Dagmara Riitano, K. Lisy. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2014

1,242 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BACKGROUND Recently there has been a significant increase in the number of systematic reviews addressing questions of prevalence. Key features of a systematic review include the creation of an a priori protocol, clear inclusion criteria, a structured and systematic search process, critical appraisal of studies, and a formal process of data extraction followed by methods to synthesize, or combine, this data. Currently there exists no standard method for conducting critical appraisal of studies in systematic reviews of prevalence data. METHODS A working group was created to assess current critical appraisal tools for studies reporting prevalence data and develop a new tool for these studies in systematic reviews of prevalence. Following the development of this tool it was piloted amongst an experienced group of sixteen healthcare researchers. RESULTS The results of the pilot found that this tool was a valid approach to assessing the methodological quality of studies reporting prevalence data to be included in systematic reviews. Participants found the tool acceptable and easy to use. Some comments were provided which helped refine the criteria. CONCLUSION The results of this pilot study found that this tool was well-accepted by users and further refinements have been made to the tool based on their feedback. We now put forward this tool for use by authors conducting prevalence systematic reviews.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/834402d2ae3882ab962ec84179a5857fc9bd890b

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Citations in the corpus

Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistance in Helicobacter pylori: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis in World Health Organization Regions (2018, methodology): “) independently, using an adapted version of the tool proposed by the Joanna Briggs Institute for critical appraisal of prevalence studies (Supplementary Table 1).(19) A score ranging from 0 to 8 points was attributed to each study (>5 points: high quality, 4-5 points: medium quality, <4 points: low”
What kind of systematic review should I conduct? A proposed typology and guidance for systematic reviewers in the medical and health sciences (2018, background): “Environmental factors can have a substantial impact on the prevalence or incidence of a condition so it is important that authors define the context or specific setting relevant to their review question [15, 29].”
Prevalence of PTSD, Depression and Anxiety Disorders in Correctional Officers: A Systematic Review (2019, methodology): “Based on Munn’s Prevalence Critical Appraisal Instrument revised to specify the nature of the samples under consideration, a quality assessment was conducted consisting of 10 items (Munn et al., 2014).”
What are the barriers, facilitators and interventions targeting help-seeking behaviours for common mental health problems in adolescents? A systematic review (2020, neutral): “For the quality assessment, we used the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist [21] and the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) [22], which were appropriate due to the variety of study designs included in this review; both have been previously validated [23, 24].”
The prevalence and phenotypic features of polycystic ovary syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis. (2016, methodology): “This appraisal tool was inspired by recent protocols produced by Munn et al. (2014) and Hoy et al. (2012).”
Methodological guidance for systematic reviews of observational epidemiological studies reporting prevalence and cumulative incidence data (2015, methodology): “Recently, there has been a substantial increase in the number of published systematic reviews of prevalence and incidence data.(8) Across these reviews, there is considerable variation in terms of the approaches to inclusion criteria, critical appraisal, data extraction, and data synthesis.”