The overall strength of evidence was graded as high, moderate, low, or insufficient (see web extra appendix B).
Using the EPC approach, reviewers assign grades of high, moderate, low, or insufficient to describe their confidence in the strength of the evidence.
*Grades (high, moderate, low, or insufficient) are based on methods guidance for US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for the Evidence-based programe Center program.
These criteria allowed the categorization of evidence into four levels: strong, moderate, some, or insufficient [ 14] (see Table 1 for the definitions associated with these categories).
Severe (<12 ng/mL), moderate (<25 ng/mL) or insufficient (<30 ng/mL) vitamin D status was more prevalent among AA who were 1.6 times (95% CI 1.01, 2.53) more likely to belong to a lower vitamin D category compared to NWNA.
The evidence pertaining to each prescriber and patient characteristic was classified into four broad categories: (1) "high", (2) "moderate", (3) "low" grade or "insufficient" as described in additional file 3: Definitions for Grading the Strength of Evidence.
Cytologic diagnosis was performed based on a seven-tiered scoring system as follows: negative, squamous metaplasia, mild dysplasia, moderate dysplasia, severe dysplasia, carcinoma, or insufficient for diagnosis.
The uncertainty is primarily based on studies containing moderate to low evidentiary value or insufficient numbers of tested individuals, resulting in a low degree of confidence that results could be extrapolated to the target population.
Rather, when the aTested is below a certain threshold (i.e. the weight of evidence is insufficient), moderate or high scores are disallowed.
Comorbidities of all participants will be recorded thoroughly, as well as smoking history (pack years and cessation moment) and physical therapy compliance (scored by the therapist as insufficient, moderate or good and scored whether comorbidity has any influence on this compliance), as being important potential confounders in this study.
