STARD 2015 was reproducible in a large set of studies on glaucoma

AIM To investigate the reproducibility of the updated Standards for the Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool (STARD 2015) in a set of 106 studies included in a Cochrane diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) systematic review of imaging tests for diagnosing manifest glaucoma. METHODS One senior rater with DTA methodological and clinical expertise used STARD 2015 on all studies, and each of three raters with different training profiles assessed about a third of the studies. RESULTS Raw agreement was very good or almost perfect between the senior rater and an ophthalmology resident with DTA methods training, acceptable with a clinical rater with little DTA methods training, and only moderate with a pharmacology researcher with general, but not DTA, systematic review training and no clinical expertise. The relationship between adherence with STARD 2015 and methodological quality with QUADAS 2 was only partial and difficult to investigate, suggesting that raters used substantial context knowledge in risk of bias assessment. CONCLUSIONS STARD 2015 proved to be reproducible in this specific research field, provided that both clinical and DTA methodological expertise are achieved through training of its users.