The development of QUADAS: a tool for the quality assessment of studies of diagnostic accuracy included in systematic reviews.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In the era of evidence based medicine, with systematic reviews as its cornerstone, adequate quality assessment tools should be available. There is currently a lack of a systematically developed and evaluated tool for the assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies. The aim of this project was to combine empirical evidence and expert opinion in a formal consensus method to develop a tool to be used in systematic reviews to assess the quality of primary studies of diagnostic accuracy.

Methods

We conducted a Delphi procedure to develop the quality assessment tool by refining an initial list of items. Members of the Delphi panel were experts in the area of diagnostic research. The results of three previously conducted reviews of the diagnostic literature were used to ge

SUBMITTER: Whiting P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC305345 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature