I am working on a meta-analysis of case-control studies.
I used Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS) to assess the quality of the studies.
I couldn't find a good reference to interpret the results although some studies categorize the quality as high (≥7 stars), medium (4–6 stars), and low (≤3 stars).
Is NOS a good choice or another quality assessment scale is recommended more?
Hi Jamil, you may find some guidance on this RG thread:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_a_valid_tool_to_appraise_risk_of_bias_for_observational_studies
hello Jamil,
these reference help you to find out about NOS and also doing the interpretation of your result.
Article The methodological quality assessment tools for preclinical ...
Article Methods to systematically review and meta-analyse observatio...
Dear Jamil,
To my knowledge, the NOS have not been published in peer-reviewed journals so far (the only reference is the web-based link http://www.ohri.ca/programs/clinical_epidemiology/oxford.asp) which is something to consider about its validation. Despite of that, NOS is the most used tool to assess risk of bias in non-randomized studies according to Quigley et al. (J Eval Clin Pract. 2019;25:44–52).
Other important issue is that it has been criticized that the use of summary scores involve inherent weighting of component items including items that may not be related to the validity of the study findings. Thus I would no go for a cathegorization on high, medium and low quality, but I would rather show the assessment by domains if I would use NOS.
Best regards.
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