A librarian can advise you on quality assessment for your systematic review, including:
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After the screening process is complete, the systematic review team must assess each article for quality and bias. There are various types of bias, some of which are outlined in the table below from the Cochrane Handbook.
Cochrane Handbook - Table 10.1.a: Definitions of some types of reporting biases
Type of reporting bias | Definition |
---|---|
Publication bias | The publication or non-publication of research findings, depending on the nature and direction of the results |
Time lag bias | The rapid or delayed publication of research findings, depending on the nature and direction of results |
Multiple (duplicate) publication bias | The multiple or delayed publication of research findings, depending on the nature and direction of results |
Location bias | The publication of research findings in journals with different ease of access or levels of indexing in standard databases, depending on the nature and direction of results |
Citation bias | The citation or non-citation of research findings, depending on the nature and direction of the results |
Language bias | The publication of research findings in a particular language, depending on the nature and direction of the results |
Outcome reporting bias | The selective reporting of some outcomes but not others, depending on the nature and direction of the results |
Covidence uses Cochrane Risk of Bias (which is designed for rating RCTs and cannot be used for other study types) as the default tool for quality assessment of included studies. You can opt to manually customize the quality assessment template and use a different tool better suited to your review. More information about quality assessment using Covidence, including how to customize the quality assessment template, can be found below. If you decide to customize the quality assessment template, you cannot switch back to using the Cochrane Risk of Bias template.