Table 1 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) checklist to assess quality of the cross-sectional studies
ARHQ Methodology Checklist items for Cross-Sectional study | Zulfiqar [66] | Hu [67] | Armon [68] | Tester [69] | Irish- Hauser [70] | De-Jong[71] | Veldhuis [101] | Abdelkafi Koubaa[102] | Stettler [60] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(1) Define the source of information (survey, record review) | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ |
(2) List inclusion and exclusion criteria for exposed and unexposed subjects (cases and controls) or refer to previous publications | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ |
(3) Indicate time period used for identifying patients | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | – | ⊕ |
(4) Indicate whether or not subjects were consecutive if not population-based | – | – | ⊕ | – | – | – | – | – | – |
(5) Indicate if evaluators of subjective components of study were masked to other aspects of the status of the participants | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
(6) Describe any assessments undertaken for quality assurance purposes (e.g., test/retest of primary outcome measurements) | U | U | – | U | U | U | U | U | U |
(7) Explain any patient exclusions from analysis | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | – | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ |
(8) Describe how confounding was assessed and/or controlled | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ |
(9) If applicable, explain how missing data were handled in the analysis | ⊕ | ⊕ | – | ⊕ | ⊕ | – | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ |
(10) Summarize patient response rates and completeness of data collection | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | ⊕ | – | – | – | – |
(11) Clarify what follow-up, if any, was expected and the percentage of patients for which incomplete data or follow-up was obtained | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
Total score | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 6 |