OBJECTIVETo determine the current status and influence factors of reporting quality of the Chinese meta-analysis on stomatology.

METHODSA comprehensive electronic search was carried out through Chinese BioMedical Literature Database (CBM), VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals (VIP) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and a hand searching was also performed through 19 stomatological journals in Chinese to identify meta-analysis on stomatology. Two reviewers took responsibility for study inclusion, data extraction and reporting quality assessment with preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) in duplicate and any disagreement was resolved by discussion.

RESULTSA total of 34 meta-analysis on stomatology were eligible, most of them were on oral medicine and oral and maxillofacial surgery, and mainly focusing on etiology, prevention and treatment of oral diseases. The number of the meta-analysis increased during recent years. Reporting quality of the meta-analysis was not high and the PRISMA scored (13.6 ± 4.2). The main factors that influenced the reporting quality of meta-analysis were published on evidence-based medicine journals (adjusted β = 0.53, t = 4.15, P < 0.001) and year of publication (adjusted β = -0.44, t = -3.28, P = 0.001). The sensitivity analysis showed that this outcome was stable.

CONCLUSIONSReporting quality of the Chinese meta-analysis on stomatology is low. To provide sufficient evidence to the clinicians and promote the development of evidence-based dentistry in China, experts on stomatology should study the knowledge of evidence-based medicine and comply with PRISMA statement when producing the meta-analysis.