Evaluating non-randomised intervention studies - NIHR Health ...

Evaluation of checklists and scales for assessing quality of non-randomised studiesAntzcakAudet Bours Bracken CASP Cameron Campos-Outcalt CarterChalmers Cho MSK CRG Coleridge Smith Cowley Cuddy Dawson-Saunders DownsDuRant Fowkes Friedenreich Gardner Glantz Gordis Greenhalgh GurmanGuyatt Hadorn Kay Koes Kreulen Kwakkel Lee LevineLinde MacMillan Maziak Meijman Melchart Miller Moncrieff MorleyMulrow Newcastle-Ottawa Nicolucci Reisch Salisbury Schechter Sheldon SpitzerTalley Thomas Vickers Vickers Weintraub Wilson Wingood WrightZaza de Oliveira de Vet Van der WindtCreation of groupsAscertainmentComparabilityBlindingFollow-upAnalysis of outcomeFIGURE 3 Top 60 star plots34pre-specified items in the follow-up domain (mostcommonly equality of length of follow-up betweengroups (88% of tools)).On average, about half of the items that we prespecifiedwere included in the tools (Figure 5).The domain with the best coverage wasblinding. The two core domains, creation ofgroups and comparability of groups, had onaverage 42 and 55% of possible pre-specifieditems, respectively.Six of the eight tools designed only for RCTs wereincluded in the top 60. These were the Chalmersscale 51 and its derivatives, 76,77 the two versions ofthe Maastricht Criteria List 70,71 and the JAMAUsers’ Guide checklist. 78,79 The Jadad 46 andMcMaster 80 tools did not include items in five ofthe six domains. In contrast, nine of the 23 toolsaimed at more than one study design 73,87,97–103and with specific items according to design, plustwo of the four tools designed for cohortstudies, 64,66 were included in the top 60 tools.