Table 1.
Judgments of methodological quality in the reviewed randomized controlled trials of electronic symptom reportinga.
| Article | Theoretical evidence/ preclinical testing |
Random sequence generationb |
Allocation concealmentb |
Blinding of participants and personnelb,c |
Blinding of outcome assessmentb,d |
Incomplete outcome datab |
Selective reportingb,d |
| Berger et al [59] | yes/yes | + | + | – | – | + | + |
| Bergström et al [60] | yes/unclear | + | + | – | + | + | + |
| Berry et al [34] | yes/yes | + | + | – | – | + | – |
| Boyes et al [35] | yes/no | ○ | ○ | – | – | – | – |
| Carrasco et al [52] | yes/no | + | – | – | – | + | + |
| Chan et al [42] | yes/no | + | ○ | – | – | ○ | – |
| Chan et al [43] | yes/yes | + | ○ | – | – | – | – |
| DeVito Dabbs et al [55] | yes/yes | + | – | – | – | + | + |
| Glasgow et al [63] | yes/yes | + | + | – | – | ○ | + |
| Guendelman et al [44] | yes/yes | ○ | + | – | – | + | + |
| Jan et al [45] | yes/no | ○ | + | – | – | + | – |
| Kearney et al [41] | yes/yes | + | + | – | – | – | – |
| Leveille et al [40] | yes/no | ○ | ○ | – | – | + | + |
| Lewis et al [49] (hospitalization) | yes/unclear | + | + | – | + | ○ | – |
| Lewis et al [50] (quality of life) | unclear/unclear | + | + | – | – | ○ | – |
| Nguyen et al [58] | yes/yes | + | + | – | – | – | + |
| Nguyen et al [51] | yes/no | + | + | – | – | + | – |
| Oerlemans et al [62] | yes/no | + | – | – | – | + | + |
| Prabhakaran et al [46] | no/no | + | + | – | – | + | – |
| Rasmussen et al [47] | yes/no | – | + | – | – | ○ | + |
| Ruland et al [36] | yes/yes | ○ | ○ | – | ○ | ○ | + |
| Ruland et al [37] | yes/yes | + | – | – | + | + | + |
| Santamore et al [53] | no/no | ○ | ○ | – | – | ○ | – |
| Schwarz et al [54] | yes/no | + | + | – | + | + | + |
| Stevens et al [39] | yes/no | + | ○ | – | – | – | – |
| van der Meer et al [57] | yes/unclear | + | + | – | – | + | + |
| Velikova et al [38] | yes/no | + | ○ | – | + | + | + |
| Vernmark et al [61] | yes/no | + | ○ | – | + | + | + |
| Wagner et al [65] | yes/no | + | ○ | – | – | + | + |
| Willems et al [48] | yes/no | + | – | – | – | + | + |
| Williams et al [64] | no/no | ○ | ○ | – | – | ○ | ○ |
| Yardley et al 2010 [56] | yes/no | + | + | + | + | – | ○ |
a Articles were identified in a comprehensive search in Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and IEEE Xplore from 1990 to November 2011, and were published in the time period 2002–2011.
b + = low risk, ○ = unclear risk, and – = high risk.
c Blinding of participants and personnel is extremely challenging in telemedicine and eHealth innovations. We thus did not consider this bias to be crucial to the quality judgment of the articles.
d We considered a low risk of bias for selective reporting and for blinding of outcome assessment to be the best indicators for identification of studies with high methodological quality.