Prevalence of neck pain and its associated factors in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Neck pain is one of the most prevalent musculoskeletal pain conditions with multifactorial impact including pain, disability and reduced quality of life. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic review and meta-analysis is available to provide reliable data on the pooled prevalence of neck pain and its associated factors in Africa. Thus, the objective of this study is to describe a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of neck pain and its associated factors in Africa. METHODS: This systematic review protocol has been designed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P). A systematic search will be conducted among six key electronic databases including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, African Journals Online, EMBASE, CINAHL and Web of Science, from inception onwards. Population-based cross-sectional studies reporting prevalence of neck pain in the African continent will be included. The primary outcome will be the prevalence of neck pain, whereas the secondary outcomes will be the factors associated with neck pain prevalence. Two independent reviewers will screen the titles/abstracts and relevant full-text articles of potentially relevant studies. Data from eligible studies will be extracted using a customised data extraction form. The risk of bias and methodological quality of the included studies will be assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and critical appraisal tool, respectively. A narrative synthesis will be used to summarise the prevalence estimates of neck pain and associated factors. However, if feasible, random-effects meta-analysis will be conducted with Revman V.5.4 software. Additionally, subgroup, sensitivity and publication bias analyses will be conducted. DISCUSSION: This will be the first systematic review and meta-analysis to systematically identify and synthesise available literature on the prevalence of neck pain and its associated factors in Africa. The results of this review may assist health professionals and policymakers to plan and implement evidence-based strategies that will lessen the burden of neck pain. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Data from previously published studies will be collected and analysed and hence ethical approval will not be sought for this study. The results of this review will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal and presentation at relevant academic conferences. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021273585.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.085 | 0.099 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.018 | 0.023 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.012 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.009 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.085 | 0.011 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".