Will the ROB-ME checklist prevent omission bias in meta-analyses?

The checklist industry has produced another output, the ROB-ME instrument for assessing risk of bias due to missing evidence in pairwise meta-analyses, nestling between ROB-MEN for network meta-analyses and RoB 2 for assessing bias in the reporting of trials (doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-076754).1 Selective reporting of study results is a well known source of bias in meta-analyses, and ROB-ME is the first structured approach for assessing the risk of bias that arises when entire studies, or particular results within studies, are missing from a meta-analysis because of the P value, magnitude, or direction of the study results. The tool intends to help researchers select and define the meta-analyses to be assessed, identify the trials that might have missing results, and crucially consider the potential for missing studies across the review. In ideal circumstances when a meta-analysis includes all trials that have been conducted on a question, the results are an unbiased best estimate…
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