Development of Quality Criteria To Evaluate Nontherapeutic Studies of Incidence, Prevalence, or Risk Factors of Chronic Diseases: Pilot Study of New Checklists. Methods Research Report

摘要

The objective was to develop two checklists for the quality of observational studies of incidence or risk factors of diseases. Initial development of the checklists was based on a systematic literature review. The checklists were refined after pilot trials of validity and reliability were conducted by seven experts, who tested the checklists on 10 articles. The checklist for studies of incidence or prevalence of chronic disease had six criteria for external validity and five for internal validity. The checklist for risk factor studies had 6 criteria for external validity, 13 criteria for internal validity, and 2 aspects of causality. A Microsoft Access database produced automated standardized reports about external and internal validities. Pilot testing demonstrated face and content validities and discrimination of reporting vs. methodological qualities.