Table 2.
Quality Assessment of Included Studies
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q5 | Q6 | Q7 | Q8 | Q9 | Q10 | Q11 | Q12 | Q13 | Q14 | Q15 | Q16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bagheri et al., 2016 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | Y | U | N | N |
| De Baets et al., 2020 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | Y | U | Y | N |
| Ding et al., 2014 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Ebrahimzadeh et al., 2019 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | Y | U | Y | N |
| Toprak et al., 2018 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| De Baets et al., 2020 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | N | N | N | Y | Y | U | Y | N |
N, no; U, unable to determine; Y, yes.
Q1: Is the hypothesis/aim/objective of the study clearly described?
Q2: Are the main outcomes to be measured clearly described in the Introduction or Methods section?
Q3: Are the characteristics of the patients included in the study clearly described?
Q4: Are the distributions of principal confounders in each group of subjects to be compared clearly described?
Q5: Are the main findings of the study clearly described?
Q6: Does the study provide estimates of the random variability in the data for the main outcomes?
Q7: Have actual probability values been reported (e.g., .035 rather than <.05) for the main outcomes except where the probability value is <.001?
Q8: Were the subjects asked to participate in the study representative of the entire population from which they were recruited?
Q9: Were those subjects who were prepared to participate representative of the entire population from which they were recruited?
Q10: Was an attempt made to blind those measuring the main outcomes of the intervention?
Q11: If any of the results of the study were based on data dredging, was this made clear?
Q12: Were the statistical tests used to assess the main outcomes appropriate?
Q13: Were the main outcome measures used accurate (valid and reliable)?
Q14: Were the patients in different intervention groups (trials and cohort studies) or were the cases and controls (case-control studies) recruited from the same population?
Q15: Were study subjects in different intervention groups (trials and cohort studies) or were the cases and controls (case-control studies) recruited over the same period of time?
Q16: Was the sample size calculation done a priori?