Table 3 Quality assessment of effect estimates of financial incentives on coverage of breastfeeding practices
Intervention | No. of studies | Design | Limitations | Consistency | Generalizability to population of interest | Conditionalities related to outcome (no. of studies) | Overall quality of evidence | Mean difference (95% CI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Receiving colostrum | ||||||||
Conditional microcredit | 2 | Cluster RCT /Cohort | Analysis of cRCT does not account for clustering | Consistent and both studies show benefit | Bolivia and Ghana | Health and nutrition education (2) | Low | 0.22 (0.08; 0.35) |
Early initiation of breastfeeding | ||||||||
Conditional microcredit | 1 | Cluster RCT | Single study. Analysis of cRCT does not account for clustering | - | Bolivia | Health and nutrition education (1) | Low | 0.17 (0.01; 0.33) |
Exclusive breastfeeding | ||||||||
Conditional microcredit | 1 | Cluster RCT | Single study. Analysis of cRCT does not account for clustering | - | Bolivia | Health and nutrition education (1) | Low | 0.20 (0.03; 0.37) |
Duration of exclusive breastfeeding | ||||||||
Conditional microcredit | 1 | Cohort | Only one study | - | Ghana | Health and nutrition education (1) | Low | 11.49 (1.69; 21.29) |
Breastfeeding among children < 2 years | ||||||||
Unconditional microcredit | 2 | Cohort | Type of breastfeeding (e.g. exclusive, predominant) is not specified | Consistent, both studies show negative effect | Ecuador and Honduras | - | Low | -0.06 (-0.16; 0.04) |
Conditional microcredit | 2 | Cohort | Type of breastfeeding (e.g. exclusive, predominant) is not specified | Inconsistent | Ecuador and Honduras | Health and nutrition education (2) | Low | -0.01 (-0.03; 0.02) |