title: Quality assessment of systematic reviews of health care interventions using AMSTAR.
abstract: Appraisal of the methodological quality of systematic reviews would reflect on their utility for the clinicians and policymakers. This study was done to assess the quality of systematic reviews published in five leading Indian medical journals using AMSTAR. 22 systematic reviews of healthcare interventions were identified. The scores ranged 0 to 10 (mean 3.77 and median 2.5), 9 reviews scored > 4/11. Most frequent yes and no scores were: publication status as an inclusion criterion (12 /22), respectively and duplicate study selection and data extraction (17 /22). Several suboptimal aspects of methodological quality were identified in the reviews evaluated.
authors.affiliation: UKCC (Bahrain Branch) and Ministry of Health, Bahrain, Box 25438, Bahrain. kidzdoc311@gmail.com
authors.forename: Vanitha
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Jagannath
authors.forename: Joseph L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Mathew
authors.forename: G V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Asokan
authors.forename: Zbys
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fedorowicz
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D012196:Review Literature as Topic