There is currently no validated gold standard or single recommended instrument for methodological assessment of risk factor studies, so a combined methodological assessment was developed for this review and tailored to assess the specific areas of risk factor studies which were considered to be important.
Details of the methodological assessment are shown in Fig. 2.
Study methodological assessment was evaluated using the PEDro score.
A three-stage inclusion process consisting of initial sifting, checking full-text papers on inclusion criteria, and methodological assessment, was performed independently by two reviewers.
The methodological assessment was done by one researcher [PM] and 50% of the references were also checked independently by a second reviewer [AF, WD] (in this case the mean of the two scores was computed).
The test threshold of presepsin of diagnosing sepsis ranged from 317 to 729 pg/ml.> -wrap-foot> intensivesive care unit, ED emergency department, PR prospective recruitment, CR consecutive recruitment, NA not available, ACCP/SCCM American College of Chest Physicians/Society of Critical Care Medicine Consensus Conference Details of the methodological assessment are shown in Fig. 2.
The search strategy was completed by MF, data extraction, analysis and methodological assessments were made by MF, DB and JS.
A detailed operational guide for AMSTAR can be found in Appendix 2. Data extraction and methodological quality assessment were conducted independently by two researchers; disagreements were resolved by discussion and consensus.
Data extraction and methodological quality assessment were performed using predefined data fields and scoring system.
Disagreements in initial ratings of methodological quality assessment were discussed between the two reviewers (ABM, RA) and if required, a third reviewer (KMC) was consulted to reach consensus.
