Table 2.
Assessment of the risk of bias (appraised with the MMAT).
| Quantitative descriptive studies | Ahmed et al. (2017) | Catteeuw et al. (2010) | Elsworthy et al. (2014) | Emmonds et al. (2015) | Gomez-Carmona and Pino Ortega (2016) | Mallo et al. (2012) | Oudejans et al. (2005) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is the sampling strategy relevant to address the research question? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Is the sample representative of the target population? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Are the measurements appropriate? | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Is the risk of non-response bias low? | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Is the statistical analysis appropriate to answer the research question? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Quantitative non-randomized studies | Larkin et al. (2014) | Mascarenhas et al. (2009) | Paradis et al. (2015) | Samuel et al. (2019) | |||
| Are the participants representative of the target population? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Are measurements appropriate regarding both the outcome and intervention (or exposure)? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Are there complete outcome data? | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Are the confounders accounted for in the design and analysis? | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |||
| During the study period, is the intervention administered (or exposure occurred) as intended? | c | c | c | c | |||
*Legend: 1 = yes, 0 = no; c = can’t tell