Lakhasly

Outcomes of interest included cardiac performance, exercise capacity and HRQL.Publication bias was assessed by visual examination of the funnel plots and by using Egger's asymmetry test 32.When significant heterogeneity between individual effect sizes was found, a random effect model was applied 31 and a sensitivity analysis was applied in order to investigate the impact of (1) methodological quality and (2) type of intervention (i.e., frequency, duration and intensity) on calculated pooled effect size.Heterogeneity was assessed and quantified using methodology and criteria as described by Higgins et al. (calculating I2) 30.

Outcomes of interest included cardiac performance, exercise capacity and HRQL. Effect sizes of each of the outcome measures were aggregated separately.

The effect sizes for each individual study were calculated by dividing the difference between changes in the treatment group and changes in the control group by the pooled standard deviation (S.D.) of the baseline outcome measure in the treatment group and control group (i.e., Hedges's g model). The calculated effect sizes were weighted for sample size and subsequently summarized to obtain a weighted summary effect size (SES) according to the fixed effect model 28,29.

Heterogeneity was assessed and quantified using methodology and criteria as described by Higgins et al. (calculating I2) 30. When significant heterogeneity between individual effect sizes was found, a random effect model was applied 31 and a sensitivity analysis was applied in order to investigate the impact of (1) methodological quality and (2) type of intervention (i.e., frequency, duration and intensity) on calculated pooled effect size. Publication bias was assessed by visual examination of the funnel plots and by using Egger's asymmetry test 32. Data are presented as mean (±S.D.) and tested two-tailed with a level of significance Ρ