Risk of bias assessments for blinding of participants and personnel in Cochrane reviews were frequently inadequate

Ref ID 344
First Author O. Barcot
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2019
URL https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(19)30275-6/fulltext
Keywords Cochrane
Risk of bias
General medical
Problem(s) Flawed risk of bias undertaken
Weaknesses identified in some Cochrane reviews
Number of systematic reviews included 718
Summary of Findings Overall 26% of judgments for performance bias were not in line with the Cochrane Handbook and were therefore considered inadequate. In reviews where Cochrane authors have split the performance bias domain into two subdomains, based on blinded individuals, we found lower prevalence of inadequate risk of bias judgments, with 9% of judgments for blinding of participants, and 5.8% judgments for the blinding of personnel subdomain being judged inadequately.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? Yes