Assessing the Risk of Bias of Individual Studies in Systematic Reviews of Health Care Interventions

Structured Abstract Objective. Risk-of-bias assessment is a central component of systematic reviews but little conclusive empirical evidence exists on the validity of such assessments. In the context of such uncertainty, we present pragmatic recommendations that can be applied consistently across review topics, promote transparency and reproducibility in processes, and address methodological advances in the risk-of-bias assessment.