Introduction to ROBIS, a tool to assess risk of bias in a systematic review

Tags: Workshop
Whiting P1, Savovic J2, Churchill R3
1University of Bristol, 2University of Bristol & NIHR CLAHRC West, 3University of York

Objectives: To introduce ROBIS, a new tool to assess the risk of bias in a systematic review (i.e. assessing the risk of bias in the review itself not the primary studies included in the review) and to provide participants with the opportunity to use ROBIS.

Description:

The workshop will be split into two sessions:

1. Introduction to ROBIS: The first session will be a brief overview of the development and structure of ROBIS (Risk Of Bias In Systematic reviews). We will discuss the process used to develop ROBIS (rationale and scope, development of the evidence base, generation of items for consideration, face-to-face meeting and piloting/evaluation) and provide feedback from our experience of implementing ROBIS. We will then present the final tool and background document and illustrate how to apply it.

2. Piloting ROBIS: The second session will provide participants with the opportunity to apply ROBIS to an example review. We will split participants into smaller groups and each group will assess the example review according to one or two of the ROBIS domains. We will then regroup to go feedback the results of the assessment to the wider group and to discuss any issues that arose during the assessment process.