A suggestion for quality assessment in systematic reviews of observational studies in nutritional epidemiology.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

It is important to control the quality level of the observational studies in conducting meta-analyses. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) is a representative tool used for this purpose. We investigated the relationship between high-quality (HQ) defined using NOS and the results of subgroup analysis according to study design.

Methods

We selected systematic review studies with meta-analysis which performed a quality evaluation on observational studies of diet and cancer by NOS. HQ determinations and the distribution of study designs were examined. Subgroup analyses according to quality level as defined by the NOS were also extracted. Equivalence was evaluated based on the summary effect size (sES) and 95% confidence intervals computed in the subgroup analysis.

Resu

SUBMITTER: Bae JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4877518 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature