An Assessment of Iranian Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Indexed in Scopus

The number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in Iran has increased significantly in recent years. Writing these articles based on internationally accepted guidelines is one of the most important factors effective on their structural quality. This study aimed to assess the abstract of Iranian systematic reviews and meta-analyses indexed in Scopus.
This study was an applied, descriptive survey. The study sample included 247 abstracts of Iranian systematic reviews and meta-analyses indexed in Scopus until the end of 2012. In this study, the quality of the abstracts was evaluated using a checklist and organizational affiliation and the articles’ publishing progress were identified through the analysis of Scopus.
Compliance with the checklist criteria was generally poor in abstracts. The objective criteria obtained the highest compliance rate (98.8%) and the registration criteria obtained the lowest compliance rate (1.6%). The results showed the growth in quantity of articles in time. Tehran University of Medical Sciences with 131 reviews was the most productive organization and Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences and Isfahan University of Medical Sciences with 23 and 22 reviews, respectively, were the next in the ranking.
The present study showed that the abstracts’ quality was not desirable. Therefore, training authors on review writing and greater attention by editors and judges during the adjudication process seems essential.