title: Is quality and completeness of reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in high impact radiology journals associated with citation rates?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study is to determine whether study quality and completeness of reporting of systematic reviews (SR) and meta-analyses (MA) published in high impact factor (IF) radiology journals is associated with citation rates.
  
  
  METHODS
  All SR and MA published in English between Jan 2007-Dec 2011, in radiology journals with an IF >2.75, were identified on Ovid MEDLINE. The Assessing the Methodologic Quality of Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) checklist for study quality, and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist for study completeness, was applied to each SR & MA. Each SR & MA was then searched in Google Scholar to yield a citation rate. Spearman correlation coefficients were used to assess the relationship between AMSTAR and PRISMA results with citation rate. Multivariate analyses were performed to account for the effect of journal IF and journal 5-year IF on correlation with citation rate. Values were reported as medians with interquartile range (IQR) provided.
  
  
  RESULTS
  129 studies from 11 journals were included (50 SR and 79 MA). Median AMSTAR result was 8.0/11 (IQR: 5-9) and median PRISMA result was 23.0/27 (IQR: 21-25). The median citation rate for SR & MA was 0.73 citations/month post-publication (IQR: 0.40-1.17). There was a positive correlation between both AMSTAR and PRISMA results and SR & MA citation rate; ρ=0.323 (P=0.0002) and ρ=0.327 (P=0.0002) respectively. Positive correlation persisted for AMSTAR and PRISMA results after journal IF was partialed out; ρ=0.243 (P=0.006) and ρ=0.256 (P=0.004), and after journal 5-year IF was partialed out; ρ=0.235 (P=0.008) and ρ=0.243 (P=0.006) respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a positive correlation between the quality and the completeness of a reported SR or MA with citation rate which persists when adjusted for journal IF and journal 5-year IF.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Christian B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: van der Pol
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Matthew D F
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: McInnes
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Petrcich
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Adam S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Tunis
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Ramez
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hanna
mesh_terms: D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D011871:Radiology; D000078202:Systematic Reviews as Topic; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic