Table 3.
- Quality Assessment of Included Studies
| Author, year | Sequence Generation / Allocation Concealment (internal validity) | Blinding of Participants, Personnel, and Outcome Assessors (internal validity) | Incomplete Outcome Data (internal validity) | Selective Outcome Reporting / Statistical Issues (internal validity) | Interventions (internal validity) | Generalisability (external validity) | Internal Validity | External Validity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huang et al. [26] | N/A | N/A | Yes | No | No | No | Low | Low |
| Srivastava & Aggarwal [27] | N/A | N/A | Yes | No | No | No | Low | Low |
● Same checklist used for all study designs but N/A for domains 1 and 2 for study designs other than RCT
● N/A Not applicable
3 domains for Internal Validity
YES for all of the domains = HIGH QUALITY
NO for any domain = LOW QUALITY
1 domain for External Validity
YES for domain = HIGH QUALITY
NO for domain = LOW QUALITY