I want a brief explanation for the new castle Ottawa scale for cohort studies. I cant understand the comparability part of this scale
Dear @Hoda Hashemi,
In some studies such as observational and cohort study designs, there are factors that may confound the outcomes of parameters of interest. These factors called "confounders". Confounding is also a form a bias. Confounding is a bias because it can result in a distortion in the measure of association between an exposure and health outcome.
In the comparability section of the NOS, the aim is to evaluate these confounders. In the first item of the comparability section, we should check that if the authors of an article control the main potential confounder of the study. In the second item, the other confounders should be control in the study.
The Ottawa Hospital has resources that provide concise explanation on using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (http://www.ohri.ca/programs/clinical_epidemiology/oxford.asp). In here, I think that the coding manual they shared (http://www.ohri.ca/programs/clinical_epidemiology/nos_manual.pdf) addresses your question succintly. These can be found easily through Google searching.
If you find the explanation wanting, please read on confounders/confounding in research from any epidemiology/research design textbook.
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