Assessing the quality of systematic reviews in healthcare using AMSTAR and AMSTAR2: a comparison of scores on both scales [Supplements] Supplementary materials to: Assessing the quality of systematic reviews in healthcare using AMSTAR and AMSTAR2: a comparison of scores on both scales

The current study assessed the consistency between A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) and its updated version (AMSTAR2) applied to the same systematic reviews in healthcare. Data from k = 10 systematic reviews were coded by two raters using AMSTAR and AMSTAR2. AMSTAR and AMSTAR2 perfectly agreed on a subset of nine individual items and strongly correlated based on the total scores (percentage scores: ρ = .84, p = .002, k = 10; absolute scores: Spearman ρ = .83, p = .003, k = 10). The overall review quality was medium to high on AMSTAR, while the overall confidence in the results was low to critically low on AMSTAR2 for the same systematic reviews. AMSTAR2 can identify the sources of strengths, weaknesses, and biases in systematic reviews. However, the interpretation of the overall confidence in results of systematic reviews requires additional guidelines for users. Supplementary materials for: De Santis, K. K., & Kaplan, I. (2020). Assessing the quality of systematic reviews in healthcare using AMSTAR and AMSTAR2: A comparison of scores on both scales. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 228(1), 36–42. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000397 Tables S1-S3: AMSTAR scores; Tables S4-S7: AMSTAR2 scores; Tables S8-S9 and Figues S1-S2: Comparison of AMSTAR vs. AMSTAR2 scores acceptedVersion