Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27156344›Full record

ArticleEpidemiology and health2016

A suggestion for quality assessment in systematic reviews of observational studies in nutritional epidemiology.

Jong-Myon Bae

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Epidemiology and health, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 38 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
64citing papers in PubMed, 38 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

64 citing papers in PubMed, 38 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  8. Association BetweenPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025
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  9. The Relationship between Female Genital Mutilation and Infertility:Sultan Qaboos University medical journal · 2025
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4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Jong-Myon BaeDepartment of Preventive Medicine, Jeju National University School of Medicine, Jeju, Korea.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesIt is important to control the quality level of the observational studies in conducting meta-analyses. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) is a representative tool used for this purpose. We investigated the relationship between high-quality (HQ) defined using NOS and the results of subgroup analysis according to study design.

methodsWe selected systematic review studies with meta-analysis which performed a quality evaluation on observational studies of diet and cancer by NOS. HQ determinations and the distribution of study designs were examined. Subgroup analyses according to quality level as defined by the NOS were also extracted. Equivalence was evaluated based on the summary effect size (sES) and 95% confidence intervals computed in the subgroup analysis.

resultsThe meta-analysis results of the HQ and cohort groups were identical. The overall sES, which was obtained by combining the sES when equivalence was observed between the cohort and case-control groups, also showed equivalence.

conclusionsThe results of this study suggest that it is more reasonable to control for quality level by performing subgroup analysis according to study design rather than by using HQ based on the NOS quality assessment tool.

Indexed as

DietHumansMeta-Analysis as TopicNeoplasmsObservational Studies as TopicResearch DesignReview Literature as TopicMeta-analysisQuality controlQuality evaluationResearch design

Identifiers

PMID27156344
PMCPMC4877518

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.