US EPA

1986 

Book/Book Chapter 

Assessing the quality of reports of systematic reviews: the QUOROM statement compared to other tools 

Shea, B; Dube, C; Moher, D 

2001 

BMJ Publishing Group 

Systematic reviews in health care: meta-analysis in context 

Systematic reviews within health care are conducted retrospectively which makes them susceptible to potential sources of bias. In the last few years steps have been taken to develop evidence based methods to help improve the quality of reporting of randomized trials in the hope of reducing bias when trials are included in meta-analysis. Similar efforts are now underway for reports of systematic reviews. This chapter describes the development of the QUOROM statement and compares it to other instruments identified through a systematic review. There are many checklists and scales available to be used as evaluation tools, but most are missing important evidence based items when compared against the QUOROM checklist, a "gold standard". A pilot study suggests considerable room for improvement in the quality of reports of systematic reviews, using four different instruments. It is hoped that journals will endorse the QUOROM statement in a similar manner to the CONSORT statement. 

2nd ed 

Egger, M.; Davey Smith, G.; Altman D. G.