JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Meta Analysis
The relationship between methodological quality and conclusions in reviews of spinal manipulation.
To study the relationship between the methodological quality and other characteristics of reviews of spinal manipulation for low back pain on the one hand and the reviewers' conclusions on the effectiveness of manipulation on the other hand. ⋯ The majority of the reviews concluded that spinal manipulation is an effective treatment for low back pain. Although, in particular, the reviews with a relatively high methodological quality had a positive conclusion, strong conclusions were precluded by the overall low quality of the reviews. More empirical research on the review methods applied to other therapies in other professional fields is needed to further explore our findings about the factors related to a positive reviewers' conclusion.