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Open research questions in Meta-analysis and systematic reviews

313 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 2,691 Meta-analysis and systematic reviews papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Better routine data collection methods are needed to enable features to be extracted, - Better data-sharing across healthcare providers and trusts, and appropriate regulations that protect privacy and security while still allowing data-sharing and linkage within a reasonable timeframe

    A fourth pillar for evidence-based medicine: implications for psychiatry · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of a pillar for patient-level data in the current evidence-based medicine model. The need for a framework to integrate patient-level data with existing pillars. The importance of addressing ethical, economic, legal, and social issues related to patient-level data.

    A fourth pillar for evidence-based medicine: implications for psychiatry · 2026 · DOI

  • Investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on symptoms of poor mental health, - Examine the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and performance on tests of executive function, - Study the impact of psychiatric symptoms on the reproducibility and generalizability of psychological science

    Failure to account for psychiatric symptoms: Implications for the replicability and generalizability of psychological science? · 2025 · DOI

  • The gap in the literature is the lack of consideration of sub-clinical levels of psychiatric symptoms in psychology study participants. The study addresses the gap by assessing the impact of psychiatric symptoms on the representativeness of psychology study participants. The gap is significant because it affects the reproducibility and generalizability of psychological science.

    Failure to account for psychiatric symptoms: Implications for the replicability and generalizability of psychological science? · 2025 · DOI

  • The types and sizes of trials K awardees conduct have not been described, which could inform ongoing policy changes relevant to the next generation of clinical trialists.

    Clinical Trial Components of NIH Career Development Awards: Supporting the Nation's Future Trialists · 2026 · DOI

  • Among those, the operationalization varies widely, threatening the SMD's utility in providing a common scale.

    (Computation of) the standardized mean difference in clinical trials should be standardized. · 2026 · DOI

  • CONCLUSIONS: Clinical significance is often under-reported in abstracts presented at EOS.

    Conclusions reported in European Orthodontic Congress poster abstracts: are they based on clinical or statistical significance? · 2025 · DOI

  • However, the quality of reporting and adherence to methodological standards in Latin American nursing journals remains unclear.

    Quality and Bias in Randomized Controlled Trials Published in Latin American Nursing Journals: A Meta‐Epidemiological Study · 2025 · DOI

  • This perspective offers a critical reflection on the growing use of AI tools as writing copilots in the field, focusing on novel yet underexplored practices such as literature review support, manuscript drafting, and AI-assisted peer review.

    Artificial Intelligence as a Scientific Copilot in Analytical Chemistry: Transforming How We Write, Review, and Publish · 2025 · DOI

  • However, sex differences remain insufficiently studied to inform treatment decisions.

    Sex differences in the efficacy and tolerability of antipsychotic drugs in people with an acute exacerbation of schizophrenia: protocol for an individual-participant-data, dose-response, network meta-analysis · 2025 · DOI

  • This study aimed to evaluate the direction of estimate changes of orthodontic meta-analyses (MAs) using different between-study variance methods considering the level of heterogeneity when few trials were pooled.

    Do statistical heterogeneity methods impact the results of meta- analyses? A meta epidemiological study · 2024 · DOI

  • Do writers regard the preparation of reference lists as an after-the-fact chore? Do references get that much less attention than does the text? Should a reader assume no correlation between text content and reference list accuracy? A return to scholarly accuracy cannot be advocated for lack of evidence that accuracy was higher in the past.

    Reference Inaccuracies in Two Counseling Journals · 1987 · DOI

  • This seems inappropriate since the purpose of a validation study is to estimate the degree of agreement, not to test a null hypothesis of no agreement.

    MISINTERPRETATION AND MISUSE OF THE KAPPA STATISTIC · 1987 · DOI

  • The time-intensive nature of MA/SRs. The economic demands of publishing high-quality MA/SRs. The need for artificial intelligence tools to efficiently synthesize information.

    Prompt engineering of large language models for paper screening in medical meta-analyses and systematic reviews: A prospective comparative study · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a need for efficient tools to synthesize information in the rapidly growing scientific literature. There is a lack of prospectively assessed prompt engineering frameworks for early-stage LLM-based paper screening.

    Prompt engineering of large language models for paper screening in medical meta-analyses and systematic reviews: A prospective comparative study · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of standardization and consistency in the definition and measurement of reproducibility. The complexity of the topic and the diversity of perspectives among researchers.

    An international consensus on core reproducibility items in research · 2026 · DOI

  • The group did not reach consensus on pre-registration. Concerns about reidentification and privacy in cases with sensitive data were the reasons for the lack of consensus on the sharing of raw data.

    An international consensus on core reproducibility items in research · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper suggests that future research should focus on developing and refining the methodology of scoping reviews. The paper highlights the importance of transparency in conducting and reporting scoping reviews. The paper notes that scoping reviews can identify research gaps and areas for further study, providing a foundation for future research.

    A scoping review approach for synthesizing and mapping research in anesthesia and pain medicine · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a need for guidelines and methodology for conducting scoping reviews. The paper highlights the importance of scoping reviews in identifying and mapping the range of evidence available on a given topic. The paper notes that scoping reviews can inform priority setting in the research agenda and suggest implications for future research.

    A scoping review approach for synthesizing and mapping research in anesthesia and pain medicine · 2026 · DOI

  • The effects of AI on methodological quality, reporting completeness, transparency, and reproducibility are uncertain. Existing evaluations largely examine isolated tasks, and inconsistent disclosure of AI use limits reproducibility and oversight.

    Evaluating the Methodological Quality of Artificial Intelligence–Assisted Systematic Reviews: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Meta-Research Study · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the reporting of search strategies by systematic review authors. The study highlights the lack of awareness of information resources in systematic reviews. The study identifies a need for more comprehensive searches in systematic reviews.

    How comprehensive is comprehensive? Prevalence of searches beyond peer-reviewed journal articles and bibliographic sources: a cross-sectional study of systematic reviews · 2026 · DOI

  • The underutilization of multiple imputation techniques in meta-analyses with dependent effect sizes. The lack of exploration of the performance of different MI techniques in meta-regression with dependent effects.

    Exploring the Use of Multiple Imputation for Handling Missing Covariates in Meta-regression with Dependent Effect Sizes · 2026 · DOI

  • MISSING COVARIATES IN META-REGRESSION 40 Although we presented the feasibility of adapting the MB-MI approach for meta-regression and discussed the scenarios where the MB-MI approach could be more beneficial or perform at least as well as agnostic MI, at least for now, its benefits need to be further examined under additional focal models and data structures.

    Exploring the Use of Multiple Imputation for Handling Missing Covariates in Meta-regression with Dependent Effect Sizes · 2026 · DOI

  • Conducting a meta-analysis on multiple heterogeneous functional data sets poses significant challenges, particularly when the number of studies is small. Existing meta-analysis methods may not provide reliable results and good model interpretation for functional data.

    Meta-analyzing multiple functional data with functional fixed-effects model · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the concordance between target trial emulations and randomised controlled trials. The paper aims to fill this gap by assessing the concordance between target trial emulations and randomised controlled trials.

    Concordance between target trial emulation and randomised controlled trials: systematic review and meta-analysis · 2026 · DOI

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313 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 2,691 Meta-analysis and systematic reviews papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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