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Table 1 Key characteristics of overviews of reviews

From: What guidance is available for researchers conducting overviews of reviews of healthcare interventions? A scoping review and qualitative metasummary

1) Overviews should contain a clearly formulated objective designed to answer a specific clinical research question, typically about a healthcare intervention.

2) Overviews should intend to search for and include only systematic reviews (with or without meta-analyses).

3) Overviews should use explicit and reproducible methods to identify multiple systematic reviews that meet their inclusion criteria and to assess the methodological quality of these systematic reviews.

4) Overviews should intend to collect, analyze, and present the descriptive characteristics of their included systematic reviews (and their primary studies) and the quantitative outcome data contained within the systematic reviews.

  1. Modified from Becker and Oxman and Hartling et al. [3, 4]