Applicable or non-applicable: investigations of clinical heterogeneity in systematic reviews

摘要

BackgroundClinical heterogeneity can be defined as differences in participant characteristics, types or timing of outcome measurements and intervention characteristics. Clinical heterogeneity in systematic reviews has the possibility to significantly affect statistical heterogeneity leading to inaccurate conclusions and misled decision making. The aim of this study is to identify to what extent investigators are assessing clinical heterogeneity in both Cochrane and non-Cochrane systematic reviews.