Fig. 3

(Reprinted by the permission of the Taylor &Francis Ltd). Note: The GEE method was used to detect group by time effects of the two treatment conditions and to detect the within-group difference of variant time-points for each group. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. *: significant difference within group between the results of baseline (T1) and post-treatment (T2) of treatment. ^†: significant difference within group between the baseline (T1) and follow-up (T3) results