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http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/32150| Title: | AMSTAR-PF: a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews of prognostic factor studies |
| Authors: | Henry, ML O'Connell, NE Riley, RD Moons, KGM Shea, BJ Hooft, L Damen, JAA Skoetz, N Wallwork, SB Moseley, LG |
| Issue Date: | 22-Dec-2025 |
| Publisher: | BMJ Publishing Group |
| Citation: | Henry, M.L. et al. (2025) 'AMSTAR-PF: a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews of prognostic factor studies', BMJ: British Medical Journal, 391, e085718, pp. 1 - 11. doi: 10.1136/bmj-2025-085718. |
| Abstract: | The ability to predict the onset or natural history of an illness, or how people may respond to a treatment, guides clinical decision making. These predictions are commonly based on prognostic factors: clinical, patient, or societal variables that are identified as being predictive of a certain future outcome. Prognostic factor research has increased across fields, with a subsequent increase in the number of systematic reviews of prognostic factors studies. Understanding the quality of such prognostic factor reviews is essential for confidence in their findings, but there is no quality appraisal instrument to specifically assess systematic reviews of prognostic factor studies. A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews of Prognostic Factor studies, AMSTAR-PF, has been developed to fill this gap. |
| Description: | Summary Points:
• Research into prognostic factors is vital for many areas of healthcare.
• Confidence in the findings of systematic reviews of prognostic factor research can be compromised in a variety of ways.
• AMSTAR-PF (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews of Prognostic Factor studies), based on AMSTAR 2, has been developed, refined, and tested AMSTAR-PF uses signalling points and 19 questions over 14 domains to assist in coming to an overall judgment of confidence in the results of the review.
• Providing a standardised and reliable tool to appraise review quality will assist users to ascertain confidence in the review’s findings. Data availability statement: Data related to agreement testing can be found in the referenced paper, or on reasonable request from the corresponding author at neil.oconnell@brunel.ac.uk. The draft versions of the tool and guidance notes generated during the development process are available on reasonable request, from the corresponding author. A preprint version of the article is available at medRxiv, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.10.25325555v1 . It has not been certified by peer review. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice. The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license. |
| URI: | https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/32150 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2025-085718 |
| ISSN: | 1759-2151 |
| Other Identifiers: | ORCiD: Michael L. Henry https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2871-6695 ORCiD: Neil O'Connell https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1989-4537 ORCiD: Richard D. Riley https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8699-0735 ORCiD: Karel G. M. Moons https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2118-004X ORCiD: Lotty Hooft https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7950-2980 ORCiD: Johanna A. A. Damen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7401-4593 ORCiD: Nicole Skoetz https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4744-6192 Article number: e085718 |
| Appears in Collections: | Department of Health Sciences Research Papers |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full.pdf | Copyright © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Published by BMJ. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2025-085718. Reuse of this manuscript version (excluding any databases, tables, diagrams, photographs and other images or illustrative material included where a another copyright owner is identified) is permitted strictly pursuant to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (see: https://www.bmj.com/company/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Non-Open-Access-Articles-September-2018.pdf). | 304.57 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
| AMSTAR-PF Development_Figure1.pdf | Copyright information: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2026. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Supplemental material: This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise. | 184.5 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
| SM_2B_AMSTAR-PF guidance_notes.docx | Copyright information: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2026. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Supplemental material: This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise. | 98.88 kB | Microsoft Word XML | View/Open |
| SM_2A_AMSTAR-PF_tool.docx | Copyright information: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2026. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Supplemental material: This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise. | 68.95 kB | Microsoft Word XML | View/Open |
| SM_2C_AMSTAR-PF_SpreadsheetVersion.xlsm | Copyright information: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2026. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Supplemental material: This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise. | 289.7 kB | Unknown | View/Open |
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