Quality Appraisal of the selected studies for the review
The quality of included studies and risk of bias was assessed by two
investigators (S.K and A.A) using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical
Appraisal tools for use in Analytical Cross-Sectional Studies (JBI tool)(6). See Supplementary
Table 3. This process afforded increased methodological rigor and
evaluated potential bias and threats to validity. Publication bias was
assessed by visual analysis of funnel plots and using Egger methods(7,
8). Both reviewers were trained in the
use of the appraisal tool prior to this process. In brief, the quality
assessments of the checklist included eight questions to assess the
methodological quality of a study and to determine the extent to which a
study has addressed the possibility of bias in its design, conduct and
analysis. This criterion is available in Supplementary Materials
3.