Large Language Models and the Analyses of Adherence to Reporting Guidelines in Systematic Reviews and Overviews of Reviews (PRISMA 2020 and PRIOR)
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In the context of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), Systematic Reviews (SRs), Meta-Analyses (MAs) and overview of reviews have become cornerstones for the synthesis of research findings. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 and Preferred Reporting Items for Overviews of Reviews (PRIOR) statements have become major reporting guidelines for SRs/MAs and for overviews of reviews, respectively. In recent years, advances in Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) have been proposed as a potential major paradigm shift in scientific research. The main aim of this research was to examine the performance of four LLMs for the analysis of adherence to PRISMA 2020 and PRIOR, in a sample of 20 SRs and 20 overviews of reviews. We tested the free versions of four commonly used LLMs: ChatGPT (GPT-4o), DeepSeek (V3), Gemini (2.0 Flash) and Qwen (2.5 Max). Adherence to PRISMA 2020 and PRIOR was compared with scores defined previously by human experts, using several statistical tests. In our results, all the four LLMs showed a low performance for the analysis of adherence to PRISMA 2020, overestimating the percentage of adherence (from 23 to 30%). For PRIOR, the LLMs presented lower differences in the estimation of adherence (from 6 to 14%) and ChatGPT showed a performance similar to human experts. This is the first report of the performance of four commonly used LLMs for the analysis of adherence to PRISMA 2020 and PRIOR. Future studies of adherence to other reporting guidelines will be helpful in health sciences research.
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This systematic review was conducted and reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 statement.
“This systematic review was conducted and reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items For Systemic Review and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) 2020 statement, which is the current guideline for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses in health and rehabilitation sciences (Forero et al., 2025).”
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Erturk, S. M., & Durmaz, M. (2026) · Academic Radiology · doi:10.1016/j.acra.2026.04.046 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Forero, D. A., Abreu, S. E., Tovar, B. E., & Oermann, M. H.
- Affiliations
- Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina (CO)
- Duke University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Forero, Diego A.
- Venue
- Journal of Medical Systems
- Published
- 2025-06-12
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 80-80
- ISSN
- 0148-5598 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-689X
- PMC
- PMC12162794
- OpenAlex
- W4411251263
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 2.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Medical Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University Foundation of the Andean Area
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- large language models, PRISMA 2020, prior distributions, systematic reviews, overviews of reviews, meta-analysis reporting, generative AI, ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, Qwen, human expert comparison
- MeSH terms
- Systematic Reviews as Topic, Large Language Models, Artificial Intelligence, Humans, Meta-Analysis as Topic, Guidelines as Topic, Guideline Adherence
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