Table III.
Corticosteroids compared to control for health problem and/or population.
| Certainty assessment |
Number of patients |
Effect |
Certainty | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of studies | Study design | Risk of bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Other considerations | Corticosteroids | Control | Relative (95% CI) | Absolute (95% CI) | |
| Pain (follow-up: range 2 months to 12 months) | |||||||||||
| 7 | randomised trials | serious∗,†,‡ | serious§ | not serious | not serious | None | 258 | 258 | - | MD 0.7 VAS higher (0.22 higher to 1.18 higher) | ⊕⊕◯◯ Low |
| Function (follow-up: range 2 months to 12 months) | |||||||||||
| 5 | randomised trials | serious∗,†,‡ | not serious | not serious | not serious | None | 211 | 208 | - | SMD 0.19 SD lower (0.4 lower to 0.22 higher) | ⊕⊕⊕◯ Moderate |
CI, confidence interval; MD, mean difference; VAS, visual analog scale; SMD, standardized mean difference.
∗
In one study, it was unclear whether treatment allocation was truly random.
†
blinding of participants did not occur in two studies.
‡
blinding of outcome assessments not done with two studies.
§
I2 value = 56%.