Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as a Potential Biomarker in Multiple Sclerosis: A Systematic Review with Recommendations for Future Research

Figure 2

Results of study quality and risk of bias assessment. Risk of bias assessment was conducted using a modified version of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies” [53]. To guide decisions on overall study quality from the NIH tool [53], the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool was used [62]. An article was deemed to have a high risk of bias (i.e., low quality) if one or more criteria from the NIH tool was unmet and marked “N,” unclear risk (i.e., moderate quality/risk) if one or more criteria were ambiguous and marked “U” and no criterion was marked “N”, and high quality (i.e., low risk) if all 14 criteria were clearly met and marked “Y.” Key confounding variables can be found in Figure S1.