Table 2.
Methodological quality of the included studies.
| References | Score | Methodological quality | PEDro item number | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | |||
| Sui (33) | 5 | Fair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Li et al. (35) | 5 | Fair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Geng et al. (29) | 5 | Fair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Zhang and Zhu (38) | 7 | Good | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Wang (34) | 6 | Good | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Zhao (32) | 8 | Good | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Zheng (31) | 6 | Good | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Zhu et al. (36) | 7 | Good | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Fu et al. (37) | 6 | Good | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Zhu (30) | 5 | Fair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Studies were classified as having excellent (9–10), good (6–8), fair (4–5), or poor (<4).
The PEDro scale involves (1) eligibility criteria; (2) random allocation; (3) concealed allocation; (4) similarity at baseline on key measures; (5) participant blinding; (6) instructor blinding; (7) assessor blinding; (8) more than 85% retention rate of at least one outcome; (9) intention-to-treat analysis; (10) between-group statistical comparison for at least one outcome; (11) point estimates and measures of variability provided for at least one outcome.