Table 4.
Ref. | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q5 | Q6 | Q15 | Q18 | Q25 |
Hypothesis clearly described | Main outcomes clearly described in the introduction or methods section | Participants characteristics clearly described | Distributions of confounders in each group of subjects clearly described | Main study findings clearly described | Study measurement blind | Appropriateness of the statistical tests | Adjustment for confounding | |
Kazlouski et al[13] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | U | U | No |
Frank et al[49] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partially | Yes | U | Yes | Yes |
Nagahara et al[7] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | U | Yes | No |
Via et al[53] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | U | Yes | Yes |
Frieling et al[5] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | U | Yes | Yes |
Yau et al[39] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | U | Yes | No |
Q4 regarding to interventions of interest clearly described was not applicable to this review since any of the studies undertook an interventional design. Yes scored as 1, No scored as 0, Partially scored as 0.5. U: Unable to determine.