Table 3.

Critical appraisal of included studies (n = 10).

Criterion		Study reference
	Lee et al. (2009)	Terjestam et al. (2010)	Sousa et al. (2012)	Bao (2013)	Chang et al. (2013)	Lee et al. (2013)	Bao and Jin (2015)	Bao and Niu (2018)	Chen and Zheng (2018)	Zhang et al. (2018)
1. Was the generation of allocation adequate?	Y	N	N	N	N	N	U	N	N	Y
2. Was the treatment allocation concealed?	Y	N	N	N	N	N	U	N	N	U
3. Were details of the intervention administered to each group made available?	U	Y	U	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y
4. Were care providers' experience or skills in each arm appropriate?	U	U	U	U	Y	Y	U	N	N	Y
5. Was participant (i.e., patients) adherence assessed quantitatively?	U	N	U	N	N	Y	U	U	U	U
6. Were participants adequately blinded?	U	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	Y
6.1 If Participants were not adequately blinded:
6.1.1 Were other treatments and care (i.e. co-interventions) the same in each randomized group?	U	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	U	N/A	N/A	_
6.1.2 Were withdrawals and lost-to-follow-up the same in each randomized group?	Y	N	Y	U	Y	Y	Y	U	U	_
7. Were care providers for the participants adequately blinded?	N	U	N	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y
7.1 If care providers were not adequately blinded:
7.1.1 Were other treatments and care (i.e., co-interventions) the same in each randomized group?	Y	N/A	N/A	N/A	_	_	U	N/A	N/A	_
7.1.2 Were withdrawals and lost-to-follow-up the same in each randomized group?	Y	U	Y	U	_	_	Y	U	U	_
8. Were outcome assessors adequately blinded to assess the primary outcomes?	N	U	N/A	U	N	N	N	U	U	Y
8.1 If outcome assessors were not adequately blinded, were specific methods used to avoid ascertainment bias?	U	U	_	U	N	N	N	U	U	_
9. Was the follow-up schedule the same in each group? (parallel design)	N	N/A	N/A	N/A	N	Y	N/A	N/A	N	Y
10. Were the main outcomes analyzed according to the intention-to-treat principle?	Y	N	Y	N	Y	Y	N	N/A	Y	N

N, Not reported; N/A, Not applicable; Y, Yes.