Gabriel Kaiser, Marie Kayser, Marie Babel, Judith Wohlleben, Stephanie Weibel, Juliane Spiegler
Acta Paediatrica, EarlyView.
Aim
This mapping review presents a systematic approach identifying aggregated evidence and assessing methodological quality.
Methods
MEDLINE (via Ovid), Epistemonikos and the Cochrane database were searched for systematic reviews, with or without meta-analyses, published from 2010 to May 6, 2025, addressing any interventions, prognosis, risks, incidence, prevalence, or diagnosis in preterm or very low birth weight children. To ensure quality, we included only those that searched at least two databases, assessed risk of bias, and defined a clear research question according to the PICO framework. Systematic reviews of interventions were assessed for methodological quality using AMSTAR 2. Those on risks, prognosis, prevalence, diagnostics, and qualitative research were assessed with ROBIS following a preliminary quality screening.
Results
Of 8000 references, 643 full texts were assessed, 239 systematic reviews met inclusion criteria: 42 interventional, 183 prognosis, risks, incidence and prevalence, 11 diagnostic, and 3 qualitative. Among interventional systematic reviews, seven showed high- or moderate-quality. Out of 197 systematic reviews, preliminary quality screening excluded 192 systematic reviews; ROBIS identified two high-quality prognosis and risk reviews out of five.
Conclusion
Quality of data on post discharge follow-up in preterm-born children is poor. Preliminary screening improves efficiency by limiting assessment time spent on low-quality reviews.
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