The following qualitative and quantitative information was extracted from all RCTs: publication year, population demographic characteristics, geographic location, baseline hypertensive status, other relevant baseline health characteristics, medication use, sample size, the specific dose of EPA+DHA, the type of food or supplement, outcome assessment method, and means and SDs for BP outcomes.
In sum, measurement of ground reaction forces may be inadequate as a sole method for assessing functional outcome and thus more objective outcome assessment methods should be included in evaluation of CCL repair.
Broadly, this may include such things as participant characteristics (for example, age, gender), intervention characteristics (for example, length, frequency, intensity, duration, mode) and outcome assessment methods (for example, type of instrument used to assess depression).
The current state of knowledge on the functional outcome after burns was hard to summarise, due to the wide variety in study designs and outcome assessment methods.
However, these findings must be interpreted within the severe methodological limitations of many studies, including small sample sizes, variable study entry criteria, short duration of trials, heterogeneous outcome assessment methods, and lack of detail on intervention methods.
All the frameworks across disciplines shared common themes, however, including the adequate reporting of specific details of study conditions and design/protocol, selection and randomization of study groups (where applicable), outcome assessment methods and applicability (e.g., validity and reliability), avoidance of selective reporting, and the consideration of potential confounders or bias.
However, secondary outcome assessment methods for union and shortening were less reliable.
However, the evaluation of success of physiotherapeutic treatment is subjective, since validated outcome assessment methods are lacking in veterinary medicine.
The conceptual validity of kinetic gait analysis and disability outcome assessment methods has guided their use in the assessment of pain caused by osteoarthritis (OA).
Many RCTs of anticoagulation in patients with cancer appear to use insufficiently rigorous outcome assessment methods and to have deficiencies in key methodological features.
Furthermore, we restricted information about exposure and health outcome assessment methods to relatively basic questions [see Supplemental Material, Annex 1 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1103823)].
