Guidance for reporting a meta-analysis of observational studies

Identify the study as a meta-analysis of observational research.

Provide a structured summary including, as applicable: background; objectives; data sources; study eligibility criteria, participants, and interventions; study appraisal and synthesis methods; results; limitations; conclusions and implications of key findings; systematic review registration number (From PRISMA checklist).

Problem definition.

Hypothesis statement.

Description of study outcomes.

Type of exposure or intervention used.

Type of study designs used.

Study population.

Qualifications of searchers (eg, librarians and investigators).

Search strategy, including time period included in the synthesis and keywords.

Effort to include all available studies, including contact with authors.

Databases and registries searched.

Search software used, name and version, including special features used (eg, explosion).

Use of hand searching (eg, reference lists of obtained articles).

List of citations located and those excluded, including justification.

Method of addressing articles published in languages other than English.

Method of handling abstracts and unpublished studies.

Description of any contact with authors.

Description of relevance or appropriateness of studies gathered for assessing the hypothesis to be tested.

Rationale for the selection and coding of data (eg, sound clinical principles or convenience).

Documentation of how data were classified and coded (eg, multiple raters, blinding, and interrater reliability).

Assessment of confounding (eg, comparability of cases and controls in studies where appropriate).

Assessment of study quality, including blinding of quality assessors; stratification or regression on possible predictors of study results.

Assessment of heterogeneity.

Description of statistical methods (eg, complete description of fixed or random effects models, justification of whether the chosen models account for predictors of study results, dose-response models, or cumulative meta-analysis) in sufficient detail to be replicated.

Provision of appropriate tables and graphics.

Graphic summarizing individual study estimates and overall estimate.

Table giving descriptive information for each study included.

Results of sensitivity testing (eg, subgroup analysis).

Indication of statistical uncertainty of findings.

Quantitative assessment of bias (eg. publication bias).

Justification for exclusion (eg, exclusion of non–English-language citations).

Assessment of quality of included studies.

Consideration of alternative explanations for observed results.

Generalization of the conclusions (ie, appropriate for the data presented and within the domain of the literature review).

Guidelines for future research.

Disclosure of funding source.