Risk of bias per outcome in RevMan
Risk of detection bias and risk of attrition bias are often outcome dependent. RevMan 5.3 has the
facility to add risk of bias traffic light ratings to every forest plot. The objective is to have the forest
plot include the risk of bias rating for the correct outcome. Examples are shown below:
1. Proportion of participants healed
And
2. Proportion with adverse events
In order to achieve this, you need to edit the properties of the risk of bias table as follows:
A) Goto properties
Double click on properties symbol (pineapple!)
B) Modify risk of bias item of interest
1. Highlight risk of bias outcome (red arrow)
2. Add general names for the outcome categories by clicking on ‘add’ – blue arrow (e.g. healing
outcomes, adverse events, secondary outcomes) – you may want to give numbers so that
RevMan doesn’t put the outcomes in alphabetical order; later you can remove the numbers.
3. Then specify which of your forest plots belong to which type of outcome, by:
a. Clicking on the outcome type
b. checking all the appropriate boxes in the list of analyses
4. Repeat (3) for each outcome category