Tools to assess risk of bias
Ongoing research is helping to make it easier for developers to find good practice tools for assessing risk of bias.
Developers need to make a decision about which tool is best suited for their purpose.
A systematic review of tools for assessing methodological quality of human observational studies (available in Downloads below) to help make these decisions.
This resource provides an overview of an individual tool’s strengths and limitations so that guideline developers can make an informed choice. The review assesses the types of study designs for which the tool is applicable, the items in the tool and which domains of bias they assess, the method used to develop the tool and whether and how the tool has been tested.
The work also includes an interactive, online data visualization instrument that provides an easy and accessible way for systematic reviewers and guideline developers to compare different risk tools and find ones that are fit for purpose. This intuitive approach facilitates comparison, through interactive visualization tables that enable users to readily find and compare available tools and different components within the tools.