Systematic reviews of prognosis studies II: Risk of bias assessment in systematic reviews of prognosis studies

Article type
Authors
Moons KG1, Skoetz N2, Damen J3, Riley R4, Hooft L5, Wolff R6, Kreuzberger N7, Williams K, Hayden J
1Julius Center for health sciences and primary care , UMC Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
2Cochrane Netherlands, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, UMC Utrecht
3University of Birmingham
4Cochrane Netherlands
5University Hospital Cologne
6Monash University & Monash Children's Hospital
7Department of Community Health & Epidemiology, Dalhousie University, Halifax
Abstract
Background: Prognosis is a description of the probable course of individuals with a health condition. Review and synthesis of overall prognosis, prognostic factor and prediction model studies is a relatively new and evolving area. Critical appraisal of prognosis studies is challenging but essential to assess and identify biases sufficiently large to distort study results. The Quality in Prognostic Studies (QUIPS) and Prediction model Risk Of Bias ASsessment Tool (PROBAST) tools are useful and reliable to assess risk of bias in studies of prognostic factors and prediction models, and the RoB-OPS tool is being developed for assessment of overall prognosis studies. The QUIPS tool can be used to assess risk of bias in studies of prognostic factors. It contains six important areas to evaluate the validity of prognostic factor studies and includes prompting items related to these six areas with suggestions for operationalization and grading. PROBAST is the tool for assessing the quality and risk of bias of prediction model studies. It consists of four domains and 20 signaling questions.

Objectives: This workshop will familiarize participants with sources of bias in overall prognosis, prognostic factor and prognostic model studies and introduce participants to the QUIPS, PROBAST and RoB-OPS tools.

Description: This interactive workshop will inform and train participants on systematic reviews of overall prognosis, prognostic factors and prognostic models. The workshop will be split into two sessions. The first session will give an overview of the different critical appraisal tools and guidance on how to use them. In the second part of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to practice with these tools and interpret the results.