Abstract :
[en] Objectives: To investigate the effect of the explicit use of PRISMA, a statement designed to help authors to report meta-analyses (MAs), on the reporting quality of MAs in behavioral and social sciences.
Methods: We evaluated a random sample of 207 MAs indexed in PsycINFO in 2016; 100 explicitly used PRISMA and 107 did not. Two authors independently checked the 27 PRISMA items and extracted factors that could potentially be associated with reporting quality.
Results: From our 207 MAs, perfect adherence to PRISMA was found in less than 4%, of which 87% explicitly used PRISMA. The following items were significantly more frequently encountered in MAs that explicitly used PRISMA: structured summary, protocol and registration, information sources, search strategy, study characteristics, results of individual studies, funding, study selection, risk of bias in individual study and bias across studies. The journals’ impact factors, the endorsement of PRISMA by the journal, the number of authors, the country of the first author, the open access of the article and the design of the studies were significantly and positively associated with the explicit PRISMA use.
Conclusions: Even if far from optimal, the explicit use of PRISMA has a positive influence on the reporting completeness of MAs.
