Table 2.
General characteristics of all included studies.
| Characteristics | VAS | NRS | ODI | RMDQ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publication characteristics | ||||
| Total number of unique studies included | 46 | 16 | 41 | 13 |
| Publication year | ||||
| 1991–2000 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2001–2010 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 4 |
| 2011–2021 | 34 | 10 | 30 | 8 |
| Study design characteristics | ||||
| Range of study sample size | ||||
| 1–50 | 28 | 6 | 21 | 8 |
| 51–100 | 9 | 4 | 9 | 2 |
| 101–150 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 3 |
| 151–200 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| >200 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| No. of intervention arms included | ||||
| 2 | 39 | 9 | 34 | 9 |
| 3 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| No. of studies containing the following treatment nodes | ||||
| Core or stabilization exercises (CSE) | 20 | 5 | 18 | 2 |
| Yoga | 4 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| McKenzie exercise (MKE) | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| Aerobic exercise (AE) | 6 | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| Water-based physical activity (WPA) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Physical therapies (PT) | 8 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| Manual treatment (MAT) | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Sling exercise (SE) | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Tai chi (TC) | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Pilates exercise (PE) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Other exercise (OE) | 7 | 7 | 11 | 1 |
| Motor control exercise (MCE) | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Muscle training (MUT) | 9 | 2 | 8 | 5 |
| Multimodal exercise (MUE) | 7 | 2 | 7 | 2 |
| No intervention provided (NIP) | 12 | 7 | 10 | 9 |
| Conventional rehabilitation (COR) | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| Home exercise (HE) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Stretching exercise (STE) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Virtual reality (VR) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Education (ED) | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Time of intervention | ||||
| Unclear | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 days | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 10 days | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 4 weeks | 10 | 6 | 10 | 2 |
| 6 weeks | 11 | 1 | 11 | 1 |
| 8 weeks | 9 | 7 | 9 | 4 |
| 12 weeks | 9 | 2 | 7 | 5 |
| 13 weeks | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 16 weeks | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 weeks | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 24 weeks | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 6 months | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 12 months | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Intervention frequency | ||||
| 1 times/week | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| 2 times/week | 12 | 2 | 8 | 5 |
| 3 times/week | 18 | 4 | 14 | 2 |
| 4 times/week | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 5 times/week | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| 7 times/week | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unclear | 10 | 6 | 10 | 4 |
| Countries | ||||
| Turkey | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
| Korea | 15 | 2 | 9 | 1 |
| Greece | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Brazil | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Israel | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Thailand | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Australia | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| USA | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Netherlands | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Canada | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Spain | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Iran | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Germany | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Egypt | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Lithuania | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Pakistan | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| India | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Poland | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Kosovo | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Norway | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Singapore | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Croatia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| China | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Finland | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Austria | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Patient characteristics | ||||
| Range of mean age (years) | 20.1–70.4 | 26.0–68.8 | 26.0–68.8 | 23.45–57.19 |
| Range of mean weight (kg) | 54.7–82.3 | 55.6–80.8 | 55.6–80.8 | 63.3–80.1 |
| Range of mean height (cm) | 156.55–177 | 160–172.6 | 156.11–177.60 | 161.21–173 |