JBI recently began the process of updating and revising its suite of critical appraisal tools to ensure that these tools remain compatible with recent developments within risk of bias science. Following a rigorous development process led by the JBI Effectiveness Methodology Group, this paper presents the revised critical appraisal tool for the assessment of risk of bias for randomized controlled trials. This paper also presents practical guidance on how the questions of this tool are to be interpreted and applied by systematic reviewers, while providing topical examples. We also discuss the major changes made to this tool compared to the previous version and justification for why these changes facilitate best-practice methodologies in this field.

Centre for Health Informatics Australian Institute of Health Innovation Macquarie University Sydney NSW Australia

Czech National Centre for Evidence Based Healthcare and Knowledge Translation Faculty of Medicine Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

JBI Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences The University of Adelaide Adelaide SA Australia

Queen's Collaboration for Health Care Quality Queen's University Kingston ON Canada

The Nottingham Centre for Evidence Based Healthcare A JBI Centre of Excellence School of Medicine University of Nottingham Nottingham UK

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