Use of GRADE in evidence syntheses published in high-impact-factor nutrition journals: A methodological survey

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2021.02.010
• Publication Date: 2021-02-15T12:26:17Z
• Authors: Sarah S Werner; Nadine Binder; Ingrid Toews; Holger J Schünemann; Joerg J Meerpohl; Lukas Schwingshackl
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; Clinical Trials as Topic; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Nutritional Sciences; 610; Humans; GRADE Approach; Journal Impact Factor; Periodicals as Topic; Systematic Reviews as Topic; 3. Good health

To identify and describe the use of the GRADE approach for rating the certainty of evidence in nutrition systematic reviews (SRs).We systematically searched for SRs using GRADE that were published between 2015 and 2019 in the 10 "nutrition" journals with the highest impact factor according to the JCR 2018.Out of 800 SRs, 55 SRs of randomized control trials (RCTs) and/or nonrandomized studies (NRSs) used GRADE. Forty-seven SRs (5.9%) rated the outcome specific certainty of evidence (n = 36 in 2018/2019). We identified a total of 465 certainty of evidence outcome ratings (n = 335 RCT ratings), ranging from very-low (28.8%) to low (41%), moderate (26.5%), and high (3.7%). Very-low and high certainty of evidence ratings accounted for 61.4% and 0.8% of ratings in SRs of NRSs, compared to 16.1% and 4.8% in SRs of RCTs. Certainty of evidence was downgraded mostly for risk of bias (37.8%) and imprecision (33%) in SRs of RCTs and for imprecision (32.7%), risk of bias (29.4%) and inconsistency (29%) in SRs of NRSs.Our study suggests a need for directing more attention toward strengthening acceptance of GRADE as well as building knowledge of the GRADE methodology in nutrition evidence synthesis.