Comparison between two tools assessing the methodological quality of systematic reviews: ReMarQ and AMSTAR 2

Abstract

Several tools are available for assessing the methodological quality of systematic reviews. The ReMarQ tool – centred on the assessment of the reporting methodological quality of systematic reviews – comprises 26 dichotomous items and does not require clinical or background knowledge of the review topic for its application. In this study, we aimed to compare the results of evaluating the methodological quality of systematic reviews using ReMarQ and A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) 2. We assessed a sample of randomly selected systematic reviews published in medical journals using ReMarQ and AMSTAR 2. We calculated the correlation and agreement between the number of fulfilled items in ReMarQ and the number of (i) fulfilled and (ii) fulfilled or partially fulfilled items according to AMSTAR 2. We assessed 51 systematic reviews using both tools. The number of fulfilled items in ReMarQ was strongly correlated with the number of fulfilled items ($$ = 0.79; 95%CI = 0.65;0.87) and the number of fulfilled or partially fulfilled items ($$ = 0.85; 95%CI = 0.74;0.90) in AMSTAR 2. The percentage of fulfilled ReMarQ items displayed a high agreement with the percentage of fulfilled or partially fulfilled AMSTAR items. In conclusion, the number of fulfilled items in ReMarQ is strongly correlated with that in AMSTAR 2 and there is good agreement between these two tools on the percentage of fulfilled items.