Assessing risk of bias: a proposal for a unified framework for observational studies and randomized trials.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Evidence based medicine aims to integrate scientific evidence, clinical experience, and patient values and preferences. Individual health care professionals need to appraise the evidence from randomized trials and observational studies when guidelines are not yet available. To date, tools for assessment of bias and terminologies for bias are specific for each study design. Moreover, most tools appeal only to methodological knowledge to detect bias, not to subject matter knowledge, i.e. in-depth medical knowledge about a topic. We propose a unified framework that enables the coherent assessment of bias across designs.

Methods

Epidemiologists traditionally distinguish between three types of bias in observational studies: confounding, information bias, and selection

SUBMITTER: Luijendijk HJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7510067 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature