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Poor evidence quality found for follow-up reviews in preterm-born children

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Research area:medicine-clinicalclinical-methods

What the study found

The review found that the quality of systematic-review evidence on post-discharge follow-up in preterm-born children is poor. It also found that a preliminary screening step can reduce the time spent assessing low-quality reviews.

Why the authors say this matters

The authors conclude that better-quality evidence is needed for evidence-based guideline recommendations on follow-up of preterm-born children. They also suggest that preliminary screening improves efficiency by limiting assessment time spent on low-quality reviews.

What the researchers tested

The researchers conducted a mapping review, which is a structured way to identify and organize existing evidence. They searched MEDLINE, Epistemonikos, and the Cochrane database for systematic reviews published from 2010 to May 6, 2025 on interventions, prognosis, risks, incidence, prevalence, or diagnosis in preterm or very low birth weight children, and they applied quality criteria using AMSTAR 2 and ROBIS.

What worked and what didn't

Out of 8,000 references, 643 full texts were assessed and 239 systematic reviews met inclusion criteria. Among interventional reviews, seven were judged high- or moderate-quality, while in the prognosis and risk area, preliminary screening excluded 192 of 197 reviews and ROBIS identified two high-quality reviews out of five assessed after screening.

What to keep in mind

The abstract does not provide detailed limitations beyond the finding that overall evidence quality was poor. The review focused on systematic reviews that met specific inclusion criteria, so its results apply only to that set of evidence.

Key points

  • The review concludes that evidence for post-discharge follow-up in preterm-born children is poor.
  • 239 systematic reviews met the study's inclusion criteria.
  • Seven interventional reviews were rated high- or moderate-quality.
  • Preliminary screening excluded 192 of 197 prognosis and risk reviews before full ROBIS assessment.
  • The authors say preliminary screening can save assessment time by filtering out low-quality reviews.

Disclosure

Research title:
Poor evidence quality found for follow-up reviews in preterm-born children
Authors:
Gabriel Kaiser, Marie Kayser, Marie Babel, Judith Wohlleben, Stephanie Weibel, Juliane Spiegler
Institutions:
Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg
Publication date:
2026-04-24
DOI:
10.1111/apa.70507
OpenAlex record:
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AI provenance: This post was generated by gpt-5.4-mini (OpenAI). The original authors did not write or review this post.

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