Risk of Bias Evaluation of Cross‐Sectional Studies: Adaptation of the Newcastle‐Ottawa Scale

Cross-sectional studies are widely utilized in medical research to estimate prevalence and examine associations. As such, they can serve as a significant source of data for systematic reviews. However, specific considerations are necessary when evaluating the risk of bias (RoB) of cross-sectional studies, as several potential biases can undermine the validity, reliability, and robustness of their findings. This article introduces a novel, context-specific tool designed to assess the RoB of cross-sectional studies for use in systematic reviews. The proposed tool represents an adaptation of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS), originally developed for cohort and case-control studies. Similar to the original NOS,…