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Abstract
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I read with interest the "Managing Bias in Research" editorial in the March issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine. It correctly noted "we are awash" in potential bias. The most comprehensive catalog of bias is the 2002 paper by Hartman et al, which is an elaboration on Sackett's classic.
However, this list is so overwhelming that it is not helpful to reviewers or readers as they assess the completeness of the "limitations of the study" paragraph of the discussion section.
The Cochrane Collaboration has a useful tool for recognizing the main sources of potential bias: the ROBINS-I tool for assessing risk of bias in nonrandomized studies of interventions. Although it addresses studies of interventions, it may also be applied to studies of exposures. The Cochrane Collaboration suggests focusing on reporting potential bias in the following 7 domains: bias in selection of participants; bias due to confounding; bias associated with interventions; bias due to deviations from intended interventions; bias due to missing data; bias in measurement of outcomes; and bias in the selection of the reported result.
The Cochrane Collaboration has a series of focusing questions in its online tool (available at: riskofbias.info). That is, a reviewer or reader could assess the internal validity of a study by considering the following questions; specifically, they can assess potential bias due to the following...
Language: en |