The American journal of gastroenterology
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Am. J. Gastroenterol. · Feb 2010
ReviewErrors in the conduct of systematic reviews of pharmacological interventions for irritable bowel syndrome.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are integral to evidence-based clinical decision making. Although flawed systematic reviews could compromise optimal decision making, their accuracy has received limited investigation. We assessed conduct of systematic reviews of pharmaceutical interventions for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). ⋯ We found many errors in both application of eligibility criteria and dichotomous data extraction in the eight meta-analyses studied. Independent verification of systematic reviews and meta-analyses may be required for full confidence in their results.