| The population, intervention, comparators, and outcomes of interest clearly stated. The authors registered the review protocol in PROSPERO. The authors searched in 5 databases and conducted an updated search before submission for publication. The authors searched the grey literature (i.e., reports, conferences, workshop proceedings, ongoing trials, clinical trial registries, Google Scholar), and through reference lists of all included studies. The authors did not apply a language or publication date restrictions on their search. Two independent reviewers conducted study selection, data extraction, and quality assessments. The authors described the interventions, comparators, outcomes, and time frame for follow up in detail for all included studies. The reviewers used appropriate tools to assess the risk of bias of included studies. The reviewers reported how they explored whether there were conflicts of interest in included studies. They identified none. The authors appear to have conducted the meta-analysis using appropriate methods to combine data, and perform subset analysis (i.e., timing of administration and dose) to investigate heterogeneity. The authors included studies with low and unclear risk of bias, and it appears the authors performed analyses to investigate the impact of risk of bias. The authors reported considerable heterogeneity between included studies for the relevant outcome; thus, the authors used a random-effects model to analyze the data. The reviewers conducted the Begg’s test and Egger’s test to investigate publication bias. The authors reported no commercial or financial conflicts of interest for conducting the systematic review. | The authors deviated from the methods published protocol in PROSPERO without justification. In the protocol, the intervention of interest included oral paracetamol. Additionally, the protocol described subset analysis of results based on age, which the study authors did not report in the review. The authors limited their review to include RCTs (i.e., all other study designs excluded), but did not provide an explanation for this decision. The authors did not provide a list of excluded studies. The authors reported the quality of evidence for the outcomes, but they did not discuss in detail the potential impact of the quality of the evidence on the results. The authors did not disclose whether they received any funding to conduct the systematic review. |
