Validity assessment tool
Study “quality” is not well defined but is generally considered to have three main components:
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- Internal validity/Risk of bias: Poor design, conduct or analysis can introduce bias or systematic error affecting study results and conclusions
- External validity: The applicability of the study findings to the review question or the generalizability of findings to real-world settings and populations
- Reporting quality: How well the study is reported—it is difficult to assess other components of study quality if the study is not reported with the appropriate level of detail. However, poor reporting alone does not necessarily mean that the validity of the study is compromise
All validity assessment tools, designed for use in the context of evidence synthesis, are eligible for inclusion in LATITUDES. The following types of tool are not eligible for inclusion:
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- Tools that focus exclusively on assessing the quality of reporting as these do not assess the validity of a study; those that include items on reporting quality in addition to those on study validity are eligible for inclusion
- LATITUDES does not include tools that cover issues that go beyond study validity such as confidence in the body of evidence (e.g. GRADE, CINeMA), missing evidence (e.g. ROB-ME), or research integrity/conflicts of interest (e.g. TACIT). Links are provided to these related resources.