This link could be helpful 

http://researchguides.gonzaga.edu/c.php?g=154358&p=1115954

Good luck 

Dear Ahmed,

I appreciate your time and effort in the matter. Before posting my question, I have looked around and and a similar (but not quite the same) question was answered with the Strobe as well. Another reply showed, however, that the use of Strobe for quality assessment of cross-sectional studies is inappropriate:

http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000048.full

Rik,  The Quality Assessment tool from the NHLBI looks like a very good tool to use.  It does not give statistical methodology per se but the tool is for qualitative assessment, not quantitative.  Your full analysis may include your own statistics ,for example a pooled mean or standard deviation of the combined cross-sectional studies.  

These tools were developed because many times the reporting of studies in the literature is very poor.  If you've ever done a review of studies, you will note that some studies don't report outcomes or state hypotheses very well at all.   If your goal is simply to assess the quality of cross-sectional studies, you could rank them based on their scores from the  NHLBI tool.  You could also assign greater or lesser importance to some items in the scale; it depends what your goals are.    

 Dear Mr Singh,

I appreciate the time you took to find said resources. Indeed, the Strobe instrument is not suitable for my research. I have found some of the other articles you sent in the past, but the general agreement on the matter is that there is no agreement.

I have resolved to use the Quality Assessment Tool described by the NHLBI and supported by Cochrane. It is a checklist rather than a scale, but I'm sure it will work!

Thanks,

This article (link), 'The methodological quality assessment tools for preclinical and clinical studies, systematic review and meta-analysis, and clinical practice guideline: a systematic review' listed all current evaluation scales required for Systematic Reviews.

Also have a look on Supplementary Appendix of the article.

Good Luck ...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jebm.12141/epdf

STROBE guideline is useful for assessing the reporting of observational studies [cross-sectional studies included]. It helps you answer the question, "Is the study properly reported?" It is INAPPROPRIATE for assessing the methodological quality of observational studies. A study may be of high quality methodologically BUT poorly reported such that it is difficult to replicate. Similarly, a study with poor methodological quality may be well-reported. I think the difference is clear (see: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000048.full)

Now, to assess methodological quality of cross-sectional studies, I think Newcastle-Ottawa. The NHLBI tool seems good too (seems like it borrows heavily from Newcastle-Ottawa) but I have not seen it used studies--could somebody share some? Thank you.

Thank you for your replies.

 Hi Rik,

We have a range of tools (including a tool for analytical cross-sectional studies) available here: http://joannabriggs.org/research/critical-appraisal-tools.html 

We are currently in the process of validating these but all the tools have been approved by an international scientific committee. 

The Newcastle Ottowa Scale that you found is easy to use. I found it good because I can customize it for my topic. I have published using this tool without any validity concerns from the peer-reviewers. 

It's also in the Cochrane handbook here:

http://handbook.cochrane.org/chapter_13/13_5_2_3_tools_for_assessing_methodological_quality_or_risk_of.htm

Cochrane is the gold standard for systematic reviews, so that adds some validity.