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. 2015 Aug 13;13:172. doi: 10.1186/s12916-015-0413-5

Table 2.

Methodological quality assessment using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale [12]

Cohort studies
Selection Comparability Outcome
Representativeness of exposed cohort Selection of non exposed cohort Ascertainment of exposure Demonstration outcome not present at start of study Comparability of cohorts Ascertainment of outcome Follow-up long enough for outcomes to occur Adequacy of follow up of cohorts
Alam et al. [14] (2011)
Alam et al. [13] (2013)
Baldwin et al. [24] (1991) ★★
Birkeland et al. [15] (2013) ★★
Bismark et al. [38] (2013) ★★
Donaldson et al. [39] (2014)
Elkin et al. [18] (2011)
Ely et al. [26] (1999) ★★
Goldenbaum et al. [36] (2008)
Hickson et al. [27] (2002) ★★
Khaliq et al. [19] (2005) ★★
Pande et al. [37] (2013)
Papadakis et al. [20] (2008) ★★
St George[32] (2003)
Tamblyn et al. [33] (2007) ★★
Taragin et al. [28] (1992)
Weycker et al. [30] (2000) ★★
Case-control and Cross-sectional studies
Selection Comparability Exposure
Case definition Representativeness of cases Selection of controls Definition of controls Comparability of cases and controls Ascertainment of exposure Method of ascertainment for cases and controls Non-response rate
Cardarelli et al. [16] (2004) ★★
Clay et al. [17] (2003) ★★
Kohatsu et al. [6] (2004) ★★
Morrison et al. [7] (1998) ★★
Papadakis et al. [8] (2004) ★★
Papadakis et al. [9] (2005) ★★
Yates et al. [22] (2010) ★★
Balch et al. [23] (2011) ★★
Chauhan et al. [25] (2005) ★★
Nash et al. [35] (2009) ★★
Nash et al. [34] (2009)
Unwin et al. [5] (2014) ★★
Wakeford et al. [21] (2011)
Weisman et al. [29] (1988) ★★
Wu et al. [31] (2009) ★★