Noblit and Hare's [ 15] seminal book gave no guidance on how to sample or appraise study reports for inclusion in a meta-ethnography (although they did not advocate formal appraisal of studies prior to synthesis) and the analytic process of synthesising was not clearly defined [ 20].
We used the recommended questions for appraising reports of medical education interventions to assess study quality [ 14].
Development of reporting guidelines to assist authors in writing and readers in critically appraising reports of network meta-analyses is timely.
It will provide a research framework when appraising, reporting and conducting oral health RCTs.
As such, the purpose of the proposed study is to provide a first step in the development of a research framework for appraising, reporting and conducting RCTs in oral health research.
Clinicians must still critically appraise the reports prior to consideration of the recommendations made in the report of the meta-analysis [ 4].
Our search strategy identified a large number of published critical appraisal tools that are currently available to critically appraise research reports.
Consequently, readers are unable to appraise the reports adequately.
Therefore, readers must carefully and critically appraise published reports prior to adopting a recommendation as the basis for change in practice.
The form was designed on the basis of a series of items discussed by Oxman et al to critically appraise health reports in the lay press.
