Journal of clinical epidemiology
-
To assess the reliability of the Cochrane Risk of Bias (ROB) tool between individual raters and across consensus agreements of pairs of reviewers and examine the impact of study-level factors on reliability. ⋯ Low agreement has implications for interpreting systematic reviews. These findings suggest the need for detailed guidance in assessing the risk of bias.
-
No methods directly address the impact of missing participant data for continuous outcomes in systematic reviews on risk of bias. ⋯ Our approach provides a useful, reasonable, and relatively simple, quantitative guidance for judging the impact of risk of bias as a result of missing participant data in systematic reviews of continuous outcomes.
-
To assess inter-rater reliability and validity of the Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS) used for methodological quality assessment of cohort studies included in systematic reviews. ⋯ Variable agreement and lack of evidence that the NOS can identify studies with biased results underscore the need for revisions and more detailed guidance for systematic reviewers using the NOS.
-
To shorten and validate the EMpowerment of PArents in THe Intensive Care (EMPATHIC) questionnaire of optimal length to measure satisfaction of parents whose child has been admitted to pediatric intensive care units (PICUs). ⋯ By statistically eliminating the redundant items, the EMPATHIC questionnaire could be reduced from 65 to 30 items.
-
To introduce a new design that explores how an acute exposure might lead to a sustained change in the risk of a recurrent outcome. ⋯ The exposure-crossover design may help in exploring selected questions in epidemiology science.