title: A systematic review of the quality of studies on dementia prevalence in Italy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Dementia, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), is one of the most burdensome medical conditions. In order to better understand the epidemiology of dementia in Italy, we conducted a systematic search of studies published between 1980 and April 2014 investigating the prevalence of dementia and AD in Italy and then evaluated the quality of the selected studies.
  
  
  METHODS
  A systematic search was performed using PubMed/Medline and Embase to identify Italian population-based studies on the prevalence of dementia among people aged ≥60 years. The quality of the studies was scored according to Alzheimer's Disease International (ADI) criteria.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixteen articles on the prevalence of dementia and AD in Italy were eligible and 75 % of them were published before the year 2000. Only one study was a national survey, whereas most of the studies were locally based (Northern Italy and Tuscany). Overall, the 16 studies were attributed a mean ADI quality score of 7.6 (median 7.75).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Available studies on the prevalence of dementia and AD in Italy are generally old, of weak quality, and do not include all regions of Italy. The important limitations of the few eligible studies included in our analysis, mostly related to their heterogeneous design, make our systematic review difficult to interpret from an epidemiologic point of view. Full implementation of a Dementia National Plan is highly needed to better understand the epidemiology of the disease and monitor dementia patients.
authors.affiliation: Eli Lilly Italia S.p.A., Via A Gramsci 731/733, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy.
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bruti
authors.affiliation: Eli Lilly Italia S.p.A., Via A Gramsci 731/733, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisabetta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cavallucci
authors.affiliation: Eli Lilly Italia S.p.A., Via A Gramsci 731/733, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy. mancini_michele@lilly.com.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mancini
authors.affiliation: Eli Lilly Italia S.p.A., Via A Gramsci 731/733, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bitossi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neurosciences, Italian National Research Council, Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy.
authors.forename: Marzia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baldereschi
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Health, University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini 6 Firenze and Centro IRCCS "Don Carlo Gnocchi", Via di Scandicci 269, Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Sandro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sorbi
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Dementia; Epidemiology; Italy