Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. Sep 20, 2025; 15(3): 95559
Published online Sep 20, 2025. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v15.i3.95559
Primary author contact for systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials: A systematic review
Vasiliki Sinopoulou, Eshan Shah, Morris Gordon, Tonia E Tony-Jimmy
Vasiliki Sinopoulou, Morris Gordon, Biomedical Evidence Synthesis and Translation to Practice Unit, School of Medicine, Preston PR1 7BH, United Kingdom
Eshan Shah, Tonia E Tony-Jimmy, School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, United Kingdom
Co-first authors: Vasiliki Sinopoulou and Eshan Shah.
Author contributions: Sinopoulou V co-conceived the project idea, led all stages and write-up of the paper, reviewed and approved the final version; Shah E contributed to screening, data extraction, data analysis, and drafting of the final version, reviewed and approved the final version; Gordon M co-conceived the project idea, supervised at all stages of the project, contributed to the writing, reviewed and approved the final version, and is guarantor for the data; Tony-Jimmy TE contributed to screening, data extraction and data analysis, and approved the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Morris Gordon, MBChB, PhD, Professor, Biomedical Evidence Synthesis and Translation to Practice Unit, School of Medicine, HA340, Harrington Building, 135A Adelphi St, Preston PR1 7BH, United Kingdom. mgordon@uclan.ac.uk
Received: April 19, 2024
Revised: November 1, 2024
Accepted: December 3, 2024
Published online: September 20, 2025
Processing time: 320 Days and 17.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: We found that a majority of systematic review teams do not seek clarifying or missing information from primary study authors. Time and resources are seen as a barrier, however, we found that almost 50% of contacted primary authors were reported to respond. Contacting authors should be seen as a core methodological requirement for systematic reviewers, and further steps should be taken to investigate and promote it.