Quality assessment tools for evidence from environmental science
Quality assessment tools for evidence from environmental science
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DOI：
10.1186/2047-2382-3-14
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发表时间：
2014-01-01
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Boyd, Ian L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bilotta, Gary S.;Milner, Alice M.;Boyd, Ian L.
对研究质量的评估是证据综合的一个关键组成部分，如用于为政策决策提供信息的系统性综述。为了减少评审员偏倚的可能性，并确保SR的结果是透明和可重复的，科克伦协作组织、坎贝尔协作组织和环境证据协作组织等组织建议使用正式的质量评估工具，而不是非正式的专家判断。在文献中已经确定了大约300种正式的质量评估工具，而且已经证明，使用不同的工具评估相同的研究可能会导致不同的质量估计，这可能会推翻SR的结论。因此，认真考虑质量评估工具的选择非常重要。我们认为，质量评估工具应该：（1）具有已证明的结构效度（即评估标准与其意图测量的内容有明显的联系），（2）促进审查员之间的一致性，（3）适用于所有研究设计，（4）快速且易于使用。我们的目的是研究目前的最佳实践质量评估在医疗保健和调查在何种程度上这些最佳实践可以用于评估环境科学研究的质量。一些关于环境议题的现有工作人员代表证明了这种转移的可行性。我们建议，环境从业者应修订，测试和采用最佳实践质量评估工具在医疗保健中使用的建议方法应用于环境科学。我们提供质量评估工具的试点版本，从医疗保健中使用的最佳实践工具修改，用于环境科学研究的应用。
Assessment of the quality of studies is a critical component of evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews (SRs) that are used to inform policy decisions. To reduce the potential for reviewer bias, and to ensure that the findings of SRs are transparent and reproducible, organisations such as the Cochrane Collaboration, the Campbell Collaboration, and the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence, recommend the use of formal quality assessment tools as opposed to informal expert judgment However, there is a bewildering array of around 300 formal quality assessment tools that have been identified in the literature, and it has been demonstrated that the use of different tools for the assessment of the same studies can result in different estimates of quality, which can potentially reverse the conclusions of a SR. It is therefore important to consider carefully, the choice of quality assessment tool. We argue that quality assessment tools should: (1) have proven construct validity (i.e. the assessment criteria have demonstrable link with what they purport to measure), (2) facilitate inter-reviewer agreement, (3) be applicable across study designs, and (4) be quick and easy to use. Our aim was to examine current best practice for quality assessment in healthcare and investigate the extent to which these best practices could be useful for assessing the quality of environmental science studies. The feasibility of this transfer is demonstrated in a number of existing SRs on environmental topics. We propose that environmental practitioners should revise, test and adopt the best practice quality assessment tools used in healthcare as a recommended approach for application to environmental science. We provide pilot versions of quality assessment tools, modified from the best practice tools used in healthcare, for application on studies from environmental science.