To perform a quality assessment of included studies for an meta analysis consist of retrospective studies . There are many tools as Cochrane items, the most reliable tools, but if we apply this tools for retrospective studies, the end result will be a high risk of bias. Since, retrospective studies formulate a main literature bases in some topic. Thus we have to do an evidence base decision paper regarding this topic according to the available literature even it were retrospective in nature.
Are there a specific tools to determine a risk of bias within retrospective studies?
I totally agree with you Dr. as there is a consensus regarding this issue. There is no agreement about assessment of retrospective studies.
A systematic review of tools used to assess the quality of observational studies that examine incidence or prevalence and risk factors for diseases
The difficulty with retrospective studies is not only that they are retrospective, but also the fact that they are observational. As such they are fraught with all the methodological problems of observational studies, chief of which is the problem of how one would deal with confounding. I would suggest that you look at the approach suggested by Hoy et al (Hoy D, Brooks P, Woolf A, Blyth F, March L, Bain C, et al. Assessing risk of bias in prevalence studies: modification of an existing tool and evidence of interrater agreement. J Clin Epidemiol. 2012;65(9):934–9). Wasserman et al used this to develop a tool for appraisal of such studies in 2013 (Wasserman S, Engel ME, Mendelson M. Burden of pneumocystis pneumonia in HIV-infected adults in sub-Saharan Africa: protocol for a systematic). The two may only be looking at prevalence but the principles hold. You can also look at the 2010 Shamliyan paper for some direction: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20728045
Thank you to all our colleagues who have sent us the excellent review article written by Tatyana Shamliyan . For all practical purposes , I direct you to the following link :
http://www.casp-uk.net/#!casp-tools-checklists/c18f8
Dear Essam, try the link it has mainly STROBE checklist for retrospective studies - case control, cohort and cross sectional.
http://strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists
Thanks.
Rahul Kashyap, MD
Thank for all my dear colleagues,currently, I used STROBE checklist, there are a lot of tools and checklist that is mean, an researcher could used any one that is easy to do and appropriate for his/her papers
Based on our experience and several others (as Dianne O'Connell mentioned) , the most appropriate, effective, universal and user-friendly tool is the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. I would recommend it in your case without a doubt.
Cochrane has a new tool for observational studies named ACROBAT-NRSI.
NICE & SIGN checklist for assessment of methodological quality in both comparative and cohort studies whether prospective and retrospective. The advantage of both guidelines is having checklist with score 0-1 for each item then you calculate the score of each study ranking it from poor, fair to good quality.
The NHLBI tool is an excellent tool that is being widely used for this purpose.
Check the below link to access the full tool. There is special guidance with regard to retro studies
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-pro/guidelines/in-develop/cardiovascular-risk-reduction/tools/cohort
Best of luck
M
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