Effect of preventive zinc supplementation on linear growth in children under 5 years of age in developing countries: a meta-analysis of studies for input to the lives saved tool

Table 2 Qualitative assessment of Trials for effect of zinc supplementation on linear growth

Quality Assessment						Summary of findings
				Generalizability		Pooled Effect	Qualitative Assessment
No. of studies	Design	Limitations	Consistency	Generalizability to Population of Interest	Generalizability to intervention of Interest	Mean Difference ( 95 % CI)	High, moderate, low, very low)
Effect of Zinc supplementation on linear growth: Zinc supplementation for a dose of 10 mg/day for a duration of 24 weeks
15[33, 40, 42–45, 47, 49, 55–58, 61, 63, 64]	RCT	In one study [49], dose was not exact 10 mg/day but was 12.5 mg/day. Supplementation in one study continued till 28 weeks [43].	Heterogeneity 71 %. Random effect models used.	All the studies from developing countries	10 mg zinc/day for 24 weeks	0.37(0.12-0.62) cm	Moderate

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