The effect of delegation of therapy to allied health assistants on patient and organisational outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Table 6 Effect of additional AHA on other outcomes

Study	Outcome	MD (95%CI)	SMD (95%CI)
Duncan 2006 [28]	Patient satisfaction nutritional care (units)	N/A	N/A
Niemela 2012 [35]	Female Leipad HRQOL questionnaire (units)	2.50 (− 0.95 to 5.95)	0.22 (− 0.08 to 0.52)
	Male Leipad HRQOL questionnaire (units)	0.70 (− 2.61 to 4.01)	0.06 (− 0.21 to 0.33)
Parry 2016 [37]	EQ-5D 5 L (units)	0.01 (− 0.04 to 0.05)^a	N/A
	WHOQOL (units)	0.85 (− 1.56 to 3.26)^a	N/A
	SF-36 PCS (units)	0.99 (− 0.91 to 2.90)^a	N/A
	SF-36 MCS (units)	1.17 (−1.51 to 3.84)^a	N/A
Walsh 2015 [44]	Patient satisfaction physiotherapy (units)	1.20 (− 0.60 to 3.00)^b	0.20 (− 0.10 to 0.49)^b
	SF-12 PCS (units)	− 0.33 (− 4.11 to 3.45)^b	− 0.02 (− 0.30 to 0.26)^b
	SF-12 MCS (units)	−1.00 (− 5.54 to 3.54)^b	− 0.06 (− 0.34 to 0.22)^b

AHA Allied health assistant, EQ-5D Euroqol 5 dimension health outcome questionnaire, HRQOL Health related quality of life, MD Mean difference, N/A Not available or unable to be calculated, SMD Standardised mean difference, SF-12 MCS 12-item short form survey mental component score, SF-12 PCS 12-item short form survey physical component score, SF 36 MCS 36-item short form survey mental component score, SF-36 PCS 36-item short form survey physical component score, WHOQOL World Health Organisation quality of life questionnaire. Bold text indicates statistically significant difference between groups favouring allied health assistant group
Positive MD favours additional allied health assistant group
^aMD reported in study
^bMD calculated from converted medians

ISSN: 1472-6963