ABSTRACT

With a ‘downpour’ of studies being published there is an increasing need to synthesize existing research to inform policy, practice and research. Umbrella reviews adopt explicit and systematic methods to search for, and identify, multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses to compare and contrast findings of individual reviews, and provide an overall picture of findings for a particular research question. Using research on physical activity and mental health as a test case, we identified and assessed 11 umbrella reviews using recommended criteria from the Cochrane collaboration (Pollock et al., 2020). Our findings suggest that many methodological components of umbrella reviews were done well by the included reviews and are in line with best practice in conducting systematic reviews. Some issues, specific to umbrella review methodology, need further attention in future reviews. These include dealing explicitly with potential primary study overlap, using MeSH terms in search strategies, detailing the data extraction process and presenting all necessary information from primary studies and included systematic reviews. Opening an umbrella with these considerations in mind will help sport and exercise psychology researchers conduct such reviews in the future.

摘要

随着研究的“倾盆大雨”的发表，越来越需要综合现有的研究来为政策、实践和研究提供信息。伞式评论采用明确和系统的方法来搜索和识别多个系统评论和荟萃分析，以比较和对比个别评论的结果，并为特定研究问题提供结果的整体图景。我们将身体活动和心理健康研究作为测试案例，使用 Cochrane 合作的推荐标准（Pollock 等人，2020 年）确定并评估了 11 条综合评价。我们的研究结果表明，综合评价的许多方法学成分在纳入评价中都做得很好，并且符合进行系统评价的最佳实践。一些问题，特定于总体审查方法，需要在未来的审查中进一步关注。其中包括明确处理潜在的主要研究重叠、在搜索策略中使用 MeSH 术语、详细说明数据提取过程以及提供来自主要研究的所有必要信息并包括系统评价。考虑到这些因素，打开保护伞将有助于运动和运动心理学研究人员在未来进行此类审查。