Table 2 Summary of the Risk of Bias Assessment based on the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) for the Cohort Studies
Selection | Comparability | Outcome | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Primary Author | Year | Study Design | Study Limitations | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q5 | Q6 | Q7 | Q8 | Risk of Bias |
Weiss | 2006 | Prospective cohort study | Female participants only, no control cohort, no a priori sample size calculations discussed, no discussion of blinded assessment, poor brace compliance, poor reporting quality | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | High |
Weiss | 2009 | Prospective cohort study | No control cohort, no a priori sample size calculations discussed, no discussion of brace compliance, no discussion of blinded assessment, poor reporting quality | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | High |
De Mauroy | 2011 | Retrospective cohort study | Retrospective design, no control cohort, non-blinded assessment, ill defined/non-standardised follow-up periods, unable to account for potential confounding factors, poor reporting quality | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | High |
De Mauroy | 2016 | Prospective cohort study | No control cohort, no a priori sample size calculations discussed, analysis restricted to a small compliant subset of the sample, non-specific diagnosis used, no discussion of blinded assessment, poor reporting quality | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | High |
Palazzo | 2017 | Retrospective cohort study | Retrospective design, no control cohort, female participants only, no blinded assessment, unable to account for potential confounding factors | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | High |
Zaina | 2018 | Prospective cohort study | Pilot study, no control cohort, very short-term follow-up | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | High |