Abstract
Objective To evaluate the methodological quality of systematic reviews for the surgical and
nonsurgical treatment of individuals with rotator cuff syndrome; to compare, through
the Assessing the methodological quality of systematic reviews(AMSTAR) instrument, the quality of studies found in the Cochrane Library, PubMed
(Publisher Medline), EMBASE andQinsightdatabases.
Methods This is a descriptive and comparative cross-sectional study, in which two independent
authors analyzed, through the AMSTAR instrument, the methodological quality of Cochrane
and non-Cochrane systematic reviews on the treatment of individuals diagnosed with
rotator cuff syndrome.
Results A total of 76 systematic reviews were evaluated by the AMSTAR instrument. The overall
mean score was 6.1 (±2.1) and the mean per database was 9.1 (±0.9) for the Cochrane
reviews and 5.7 (±1.8) for the non-Cochrane reviews. The lowest-scoring item of AMSTAR
was 11, related to the display of the conflict of interests of the publication. In
a comparative analysis of the final variable score, there was a statistical difference
between the Cochrane and non-Cochrane studies.
Conclusion According to the present study, systematic reviews using the Cochrane methodology
have a better methodological quality compared to non-Cochrane studies on the treatment
of rotator cuff dysfunctions.
Keywords
rotator cuff - methodology - systematic review