What do meta-analysts need in primary studies? Guidelines and the SEMI checklist for facilitating cumulative knowledge

Abstract

Meta-analysis is often recognized as the highest level of evidence due to its notable advantages. Therefore, ensuring the precision of its findings is of utmost importance. Insufficient reporting in primary studies poses challenges for meta-analysts, hindering study identification, effect size estimation, and meta-regression analyses. This manuscript provides concise guidelines for the comprehensive reporting of qualitative and quantitative aspects in primary studies. Adhering to these guidelines may help researchers enhance the quality of their studies and increase their eligibility for inclusion in future research syntheses, thereby enhancing research synthesis quality. Recommendations include incorporating relevant terms in titles and abstracts to facilitate study retrieval and reporting sufficient data for effect size calculation. Additionally, a new checklist is introduced to help applied researchers thoroughly report various aspects of their studies.