Table 3.
NIH quality assessment tool for assessing the cross-sectional studies
| Author name | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bodanki et al. [30] | No | Yes | NA | No | No | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | Yes | NA | NA | NA |
| Meshram et al. [8] | Yes | Yes | NA | No | Yes | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | Yes | NA | NA | NA |
| Raaj et al. [16] | Yes | Yes | NA | Yes | No | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | Yes | NA | NA | NA |
| Sahu et al. [17] | Yes | Yes | NA | Yes | No | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | Yes | NA | NA | NA |
NA Not Applicable
Numbers in the top row are representative of the 14 criteria of NIH assessment tool as described below:
1. Was the research question or objective in this paper clearly stated?
2. Was the study population clearly specified and defined?
3. Was the participation rate of eligible persons at least 50%?
4. Were inclusion and exclusion criteria for being in the study prespecified and applied uniformly to all participants?
5. Was a sample size justification, power description, or variance and effect estimates provided?
6. For the analyses in this paper, were the exposure(s) of interest measured prior to the outcome(s) being measured?
7. Was the timeframe sufficient so that one could reasonably expect to see an association between exposure and outcome if it existed?
8. For exposures that can vary in amount or level, did the study examine different levels of the exposure as related to the outcome
9. Were the exposure measures clearly defined, valid, reliable, and implemented consistently across all study participants?
10. Was the exposure(s) assessed more than once over time?
11. Were the outcome measures clearly defined, valid, reliable, and implemented consistently across all study participants?
12. Were the outcome assessors blinded to the exposure status of participants?
13. Was loss to follow-up after baseline 20% or less?
14. Were key potential confounding variables measured and adjusted statistically for their impact on the relationship between exposure(s) and outcome(s)?