Table 2 Quality assessment by outcome
From: Emollient therapy for preterm newborn infants 鈥� evidence from the developing world
| 听 | Quality assessment | Summary of findings | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 听 | Directness | No of events* | 听 | |||||
No of studies | Design | Limitations | Consistency | Generalizability to population of interest | Generalizability to intervention of interest | Intervention | Control | RR / SMD (95% CI) |
Neonatal mortality: moderate outcome specific quality of evidence | ||||||||
Three | RCT | No significant heterogeneity, fixed effect model used | One of the three studies suggest benefit | All studies from the developing countries | Two of the studies used sunflower while one used coconut oil as emollient | 04 | 11 | RR: 0.73 [0.56, 0.94] |
Hospital acquired infection: moderate outcome specific quality of evidence | ||||||||
Three | RCT | No significant heterogeneity, fixed effect model used | All studies suggest benefit | All studies from the developing countries | Studies used sunflower and coconut oil | 19 | 33 | RR: 0.50 [0.36, 0.71] |
Weight: moderate outcome specific quality of evidence | ||||||||
Four studies (five data sets) | RCT | No significant heterogeneity, fixed effect model used | Three studies suggest benefit | All studies from the developing countries | Studies used coconut, sunflower and soybean oil | 149 | 151 | SMD: 98.04 [42.64, 153.45] |
Weight gain (g/kg/day): moderate outcome specific quality of evidence | ||||||||
Two studies (three data sets) | RCT | Significant heterogeneity so a random effect model used | One study suggested benefit | All studies from developing countries | Studies used coconut and sunflower oil | 95 | 97 | SMD: 1.57 [0.79, 2.36] |
Length: moderate outcome specific quality of evidence | ||||||||
Two studies (three data sets) | RCT | Significant heterogeneity so a random effect model used | Two studies suggest benefit | All studies from developing countries | Studies used coconut and sunflower oil | 124 | 128 | SMD: 0.33 [-0.15, 0.81] |
Head circumference: moderate outcome specific quality of evidence | ||||||||
Two studies (three data sets) | RCT | No significant heterogeneity, fixed effect model used | None of the studies suggest benefit | All studies from developing countries | Studies used coconut and sunflower oil | 124 | 128 | SMD: 0.05 [-0.30, 0.41] |