Table 2.
Quality of Evidence
| Certainty Assessment | № of Patients | Effect | Certainty | Importance | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| № of Studies | Study Design | Risk of Bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Other Considerations | EG | CG | Relative (95% CI) | Absolute (95% CI) | ||
| 6MWT | ||||||||||||
| 6 | Randomized trials | Serious a | Serious b | Not serious | Not serious | None | 180 | 139 | - | MD 69.64 higher (40.26 higher to 99.01 higher) | ⨁⨁◯◯ LOW | IMPORTANT |
| SGRQ | ||||||||||||
| 3 | Randomized trials | Serious a | Not serious | Not serious | Not serious | None | 144 | 103 | - | MD 12.77 lower (16.03 lower to 9.5 lower) | ⨁⨁⨁◯ MODERATE | CRITICAL |
Notes: alack of blinding and concealment of allocation are not clear. bHigh heterogeneity (I2 >50%).
Abbreviations: CI, Confidence interval; MD, Mean difference.