Table 4 Quality items and score of one study using a reaction-time task included in a systematic review on the effect of spinal manipulation on ‘brain function’
1st Author Yr of publication Ref | -Were study subjects in sham controlled studies reported to be blind? (Yes / No / Unclear) -If yes / unclear, was the blinding tested for success? (Yes / No) -If yes, was it successful? (Yes / No) | -Were study subjects in studies with control group reported to be naive? (Yes / No / Unclear) -Was the origin of the subjects reported (Yes / No) -If yes, does it allow to exclude any interest? (Yes / No / Unclear) | Were study subjects reported to have been randomly allocated to study groups? (Yes / No / Unclear) | Were study groups comparable in relation to symptoms when studying symptomatic subjects (duration and pain intensity) (NA when cross-over study design)? (Yes / No) | Were the intervention and control(s) well described (at least where and how)? (Yes / No) | Was the assessor reported to be blind to group allocation? (Yes / No) | Were losses and exclusions of study subjects reported or obvious in result section (including in tables or graphs)? (Yes / No / Unclear) | Was the person who statistically analyzed the data reported to be blind to group allocation? (Yes / No) | Comments by the technical experts (i) on the statistical analysis, and (ii) in relation to the methodology and/or technical aspects |
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Quality score (risk of bias, also including an external validity criteria) and classification | |||||||||
Kelly 2000 [29] | -Yes (but in relation to the outcome) -Yes -No | 1: -The authors used a Student t tests to compare means instead of using a mixed-model ANOVA, followed by post-hoc tests if needed. -The authors did not study how RT (for correct answers) varied with angle, which is the main analysis conducted in the literature on such data. Therefore, without such a (usually linear) trend analysis it is not possible to understand if the overall mean effect observed by the authors is due to a change in slope (reflecting a change in processing speed) or in intercept (reflecting a change in stimulus encoding). 3: -Between-group difference pre-post significant only with one-sided t-test. -The between-group difference pre-post is not reported for the simple RT task but it seems that a contribution of the simple RT to the RT of the complex task cannot be excluded. -Unclear whether errors were also counted. | |||||||
3.5/6 (58%) medium | NA | = Unclear 0.5 pt | Yes 1 pt | NA (healthy subjects) | -Yes 0.5 pt -Yes 0.5 pt | No 0 pt | Yes 1 pt | No 0 pt |