ObjectivesTo evaluate the methodological quality and the reliability of the conclusions of systematic reviews (SRs) on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment for essential hypertension. MethodsPubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data databases were searched to collect the SRs which focused on the TCM for essential hypertension from January 2015 to June 2019. PRISMA statement, AMSTAR 2 tool and GRADE system were respectively applied to evaluate report quality, methodological quality and evidence quality assessment of included outcomes of SRs.ResultsA total of 25 SRs involving 65 outcomes were included. PRISMA evaluation results showed that the quality of 25 SRs reports was good. However, all studies did not report item 5 " Was an ‘a prior’ design provided?”. AMSTAR 2 tool evaluation results showed that the 25 SRs of quality levels were markedly low, where most problems concerned item 2 " If there is ‘a prior’ published in advance”, item 3 " Were reasons about selection of the study designs explained”, item 7 " Were the list of exclude of studies and justify the exclusions provided”, item 10 " Were the sources of funding for the studies reported”, and item 12 " If meta-analysis was performed, whether the author assesses the potential impact of risk of bias”. The results of grading showed that most outcomes were graded as " low” or " very low” quality. The main factors contributing to downgrading evidence quality were limitations, followed by inconsistencies, inaccuracies and publication bias.ConclusionsCurrent evidences shows that the treatment of essential hypertension by TCM has been supported by low quality evidence-based medical evidence. However, the SRs methodology for the treatment of essential hypertension by TCM is generally poor in quality and the standardization still require improvement.
ObjectiveTo overview the systematic reviews (SRs) on the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the treatment of atrial fibrillation.MethodsPubMed, The Cochrane Library, EMbase, CNKI, CBM, WanFang Data and VIP database were electronically searched to collect SRs of TCM in the treatment of atrial fibrillation from inception to July 2019. Two researchers independently screened literature, extracted data and then the methodological quality, reporting quality and evidence quality of the included documents were evaluated by AMSTAR2 tool, PRISMA statement and GRADE method.ResultsA total of 20 SRs were included. In which, 15 SRs evaluated clinical efficacy and 12 SRs analyzed adverse reactions. The methodological quality evaluation by AMSTAR2 was generally low and none of them being high quality, 1 of them being low quality and 19 of them being extremely low quality. The items with poor scores were item 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16. The PRISMA score ranged from 14 to 22.5. The quality question of the report was mainly manifested in the aspects of scheme and registration, data item, other analysis methods and sources of fundings. Evidence quality evaluation of GRADE outcome indicators was generally low.ConclusionTraditional Chinese medicine for atrial fibrillation can improve clinical efficacy and reduce adverse reactions. The overall methodological quality of the included literature is not high, and the quality of evidence is generally low. It suggest that further high-quality clinical studies should be carried out to provide a basis for evaluating the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in treatment of atrial fibrillation.