John Ioannidis, famous for his 2005 article “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” (Ioannidis, 2005) has subsequently raised concerns about the overproduction of systematic reviews (Flemming et al., 2016). Many he argues are of poor quality with multiple reviews covering the same ground. Most importantly, it is often unclear how the authors decided which studies to include. This article in Nature Index examines whether these concerns are valid and what can be done to improve the credibility of systematic reviews (Brock, 2019).
- Brock, J. (2019, September 27). How researchers can improve the quality of systematic reviews. Retrieved September 27, 2019, from https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/how-researchers-can-improve-the-quality-of-systematic-reviews
- Fleming, P. S., Koletsi, D., Ioannidis, J. P. A., & Pandis, N. (2016). High quality of the evidence for medical and other health-related interventions was uncommon in Cochrane systematic reviews. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 78, 34–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2016.03.012
- Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Medicine, 2(8), e124. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124