AMSTAR-PF: a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews of prognostic factor studies

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.