ROBIS: A new tool to assess risk of bias in systematic reviews was developed

Abstract

ObjectiveTo develop ROBIS, a new tool for assessing the risk of bias in systematic reviews (rather than in primary studies).Study Design and SettingWe used four-stage approach to develop ROBIS: define the scope, review the evidence base, hold a face-to-face meeting, and refine the tool through piloting.ResultsROBIS is currently aimed at four broad categories of reviews mainly within health care settings: interventions, diagnosis, prognosis, and etiology. The target audience of ROBIS is primarily guideline developers, authors of overviews of systematic reviews (“reviews of reviews”), and review authors who might want to assess or avoid risk of bias in their reviews. The tool is completed in three phases: (1) assess relevance (optional), (2) identify concerns with the review process, and (3) judge risk of bias. Phase 2 covers four domains through which bias may be introduced into a systematic review: study eligibility criteria; identification and selection of studies; data collection and study appraisal; and synthesis and findings. Phase 3 assesses the overall risk of bias in the interpretation of review findings and whether this considered limitations identified in any of the phase 2 domains. Signaling questions are included to help judge concerns with the review process (phase 2) and the overall risk of bias in the review (phase 3); these questions flag aspects of review design related to the potential for bias and aim to help assessors judge risk of bias in the review process, results, and conclusions.ConclusionsROBIS is the first rigorously developed tool designed specifically to assess the risk of bias in systematic reviews.

Assessing the Risk of Bias of Individual Studies in Systematic Reviews of Health Care Interventions

“…85 A second more recent tool is ROBIS, Risk of Bias in Systematic Reviews, which was released in 2015. 86 ROBIS focuses on risk of bias as opposed to the rigor of the process of a systematic review, which is the focus of AMSTAR. 87 In addition to the above tools, there are at least two reporting guidelines for systematic reviews: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE).…”

Time to challenge the spurious hierarchy of systematic over narrative reviews?

“…This stance reflects the raison d’être of the Cochrane Collaboration, whose use of explicit and auditable quality criteria for undertaking systematic reviews has inspired a weighty methodological handbook,3 numerous tools and checklists4, 5 and structured reporting criteria 6. There is strong emphasis on methodological reproducibility, with the implication that a different review team, using the same search criteria, quality checklists and synthesis tools, should obtain the same result 3…”

Effectiveness and Adverse Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation: Umbrella Review of Meta-Analyses

“…15 Finally, we assessed the risk of bias of the included systematic reviews with the newly-designed ROBIS tool. 16 From each eligible meta-analysis, the same two authors abstracted information independently on first author, year of publication, outcome examined, number of included studies, and reported data at the individual trial level. For each of the included studies in each eligible meta-analysis, we recorded the study design (RCT or non-RCT), the number of cases (for binary outcomes) and population participants.…”