Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are becoming more popular across sciences, often influencing future research, policies, interventions, and similar. The conclusions of evidence synthesis will depend on the quality of the primary studies (i.e. evidence) included. Thus, the quality and risk of bias in these primary studies must be essential components of evidence synthesis. However, in many scientific fields, including behavioural sciences, this is rarely so.

 

In this Stage 1 manuscript, Batinović et al. (2025) propose to conduct a systematic map of the existing tools to assess methodological quality of risk of bias tools across scientific fields, and map their applicability for primary studies within the broad field of behavioral sciences. The review will provide a comprehensive overview of how existing tools can be applied to the behavioral sciences, and identify gaps for future development of relevant tools in the field. The protocol and its methods were thoroughly developed, and are suitable to reach the research aims.

 

The Stage 1 submission was evaluated by two expert reviewers. After two rounds of revision, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria, and the manuscript was awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 4. At least some of the data/evidence that will be used to answer the research question already exists AND is accessible in principle to the authors (e.g. residing in a public database or with a colleague) BUT the authors certify that they have not yet accessed any part of that data/evidence.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

References
 
1. Batinović, L., Pickering, J. S., van den Akker, O. R., Bishop, D., Elsherif, M., Evans, T. R., Gibbs, M., Kalandadze, T., Staaks, J., & Topor, M., Gold in, gold out. Quality appraisal and risk of bias tools to assess non-intervention studies for systematic reviews in the behavioural sciences: A scoping review. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/4gy5b