Reporting quality of scoping reviews in dental public health

Abstract

The study aimed to explore reporting characteristics of scoping reviews in dental public health and the impact of some factors on the reporting quality. This study searched for dental public health scoping reviews in PubMed and Scopus without year restrictions and restricted to English-language publications. Study selection was undertaken by two reviewers independently. One reviewer, after training, extracted data from included studies considering general study characteristics and reporting characteristics. The impact of PRISMA-ScR publication, journal endorsement, and use of study protocol on the reporting was explored. Eighty-one scoping reviews were included. Five items presented rates of appropriate reporting higher than 80% considering the overall percentage. Related to the impact of PRISMA-ScR publication, six items were found more often in scoping reviews published after the publication of PRISMA-ScR than in scoping reviews published before the publication of PRISMA-ScR. With regards to journals endorsement, only two reporting characteristics were found more often in scoping reviews published in journals that endorse the PRISMA-ScR statement than in scoping reviews published in non-endorsers journals. Last, regarding the use of the pre-specified protocol, five reporting characteristics presented differences in studies reporting the use of pre-specified protocol than in studies that did not mention the use of a protocol. All differences were statistically significant. Important information is missing in the included scoping reviews demonstrating crucial reporting problems.