Bias in clinical trials or systematic reviews may result in overestimation or underestimation of the benefits or harms of the interventions, and conclusions may be false. Meta-epidemiological study is an important tool to identify and quantify the impact of potential bias characteristics, and it can provide empirical evidence for controlling the bias. This paper summarized the origin, development and definition of the meta-epidemiology study, and discussed the challenges and development trends, so as to provide references for carrying out the meta-epidemiological studies.
The guideline for reporting meta-epidemiological research, based on PRISMA, aims to increase the reporting quality and transparency of meta-epidemiological studies. This paper introduced and interpreted the 24 reporting items in the guidelines for reporting meta-epidemiological research to provide a reference for standardizing the reporting of meta-epidemiological studies.