Harms Reporting Is Inadequate in Systematic Reviews Regarding Hip Arthroscopy.

Purpose: To investigate the quality of harms reporting in systematic reviews (SRs) regarding hip arthroscopy in the current literature.

Methods: In May 2022, an extensive search of 4 major databases was performed identifying SRs regarding hip arthroscopy: MEDLINE (PubMed and Ovid), EMBASE, Epistemonikos, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted, in which investigators performed screening and data extraction of the included studies in a masked, duplicate fashion. AMSTAR-2 (A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews-2) was used to assess the methodologic quality and bias of the included studies. The corrected covered area was calculated for SR dyads.

Results: A total of 82 SRs were included in our study for data extraction. Of these SRs, 37 reported under 50% of the harms criteria (37 of 82, 45.1%) and 9 did not report harms at all (9 of 82, 10.9%). A significant relation was found between completeness of harms reporting and overall AMSTAR appraisal ( = .0261), as well as whether a harm was listed as a primary or secondary outcome ( = .0001). Eight SR dyads had corrected covered areas of 50% or greater and were compared for shared harms reported.

Conclusions: In this study, we found inadequate harms reporting in most SRs concerning hip arthroscopy.

Clinical Relevance: With the magnitude of hip arthroscopic procedures being performed, adequate reporting of harms-related information in the research surrounding this treatment is essential in assessing the efficacy of the treatment. This study provides data in relation to harms reporting in SRs regarding hip arthroscopy.