Screening and evaluation tools of dysphagia in adults with neuromuscular diseases: a systematic review.

"Conflict of interest statement: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article."

"Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: N.A. received funding from Fund Eliane Lagast and Association Belge Contre les Maladies neuro-Musculaires-Aide à la Recherche asbl for his PhD scholarship. C.G. is supported by the Fondation Saint-Luc. G.R. received funding from the Institut de Recherche Expérimentale et Clinique, Université Catholique de Louvain."

"The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed during the stages of design, analysis, and reporting of this systematic review., The protocol has been registered in PROSPERO (Registration No. CRD42016033690). The research strategy followed the same pattern and the same criteria as our previous systematic review in children with NMDs. The full search strategy is highlighted in Supplement 1. Online databases were screened from inception to June 2018. The PICOS (participant, intervention/exposure, comparator, outcome and study design) approach was applied for data extraction (). After removing duplicates, abstracts were selected based on relevance by two independent investigators (N.A. and G.R.). Full-text articles were assessed when inclusion was uncertain from the title and abstract. Where there was disagreement, a consensus meeting was organized to determine eligibility. Articles were excluded if they included insufficient information on the instrument used. Study details and data were extracted by N.A. and G.R. Data extracted included the name of the tests, sample characteristics (including sample size, age group and disease severity), test protocols, outcomes, and correlations. Measurement properties of investigated tools, defined following the COSMIN statement, were reported when available and were described in two categories: ‘instrumental’ and ‘noninstrumental’ examinations. As described by Mann, we classified the different publications as cohort, cross-sectional, or case-control studies. The Quality Index, developed by Downs and Black for assessing methodological quality and bias, was applied by the two same investigators., This tool covers 27 questions relating to the study description and external and internal validity, with a total maximum score of 28. Each study was assigned a grade of ‘excellent’ (24–28 points), ‘good’ (19–23 points), ‘fair’ (14–18 points) or ‘poor’ (<14 points)."