Article

AMSTAR 2: a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews that include randomised or non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions, or both

Beverley SheaBruyère Research Institute, Ottawa, CanadaBarnaby C ReevesSchool of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UKGeorge A. WellsSchool of Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, CanadaMicere ThukuBruyère Research Institute, Ottawa, CanadaCandyce HamelOttawa Hospital Research Institute, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa, CanadaJulian MoranThe Hospital for Sick Children, the Genetics and Genome Biology Program, Toronto, CanadaDavid MoherOttawa Hospital Research Institute, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa, CanadaPeter TugwellDepartment of Medicine, The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, CanadaVivian WelchBruyère Research Institute, Ottawa, CanadaElizabeth KristjanssonCentre for Research in Educational and Community Services, School of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, CanadaDavid HenryCentre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice, Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia

2017en

ABI

Abstract

The number of published systematic reviews of studies of healthcare interventions has increased rapidly and these are used extensively for clinical and policy decisions. Systematic reviews are subject to a range of biases and increasingly include non-randomised studies of interventions. It is important that users can distinguish high quality reviews. Many instruments have been designed to evaluate different aspects of reviews, but there are few comprehensive critical appraisal instruments. AMSTAR was developed to evaluate systematic reviews of randomised trials. In this paper, we report on the updating of AMSTAR and its adaptation to enable more detailed assessment of systematic reviews that include randomised or non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions, or both. With moves to base more decisions on real world observational evidence we believe that AMSTAR 2 will assist decision makers in the identification of high quality systematic reviews, including those based on non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions<i>.</i>

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1136/bmj.j4008

Citations and references

Cited by 30 references

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