Background styles in systematic review articles are not related to the publication in high-impact-factor journals: A meta-epidemiological study

OBJECTIVES: To clarify the styles used in background sections of systematic reviews (SR) and to identify which styles if any were related to the publication in high-impact-factor (HIF) medical journals. METHOD: This was a cross-sectional study for original SR articles published in top 50 journals in MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL category in Journal Citation Reports 2018. We randomly included 90 articles from top 10 HIF journals and 90 from others, respectively. We conducted a content analysis to classify the background styles. We assessed the factors associated with the publication in HIF journals. RESULTS: We found 6 categories. We defined 6 categories as follows: Update of prior SR, New in scope than prior SR, Higher quality than prior SR, Completely new SR, Limitations of primary studies only, and Not presenting unknown in prior SR or primary studies. All 6 categories were not related to the publication in HIF journals. CONCLUSIONS: We found 6 categories of styles in background sections of SR, none of which however were related to publication in HIF journals. SR authors may wish to use any of these categories to communicate the importance of their research questions.