The effectiveness of solar disinfection water treatment method for reducing childhood diarrhea: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

ObjectiveThis study aimed to pool out the available evidence on the effectiveness of the solar disinfection water treatment method for reducing childhood diarrhoea.DesignSystematic review and meta-analysis.SettingGlobal.MethodsSearches were conducted in Medline/PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library databases and references to other studies. The review included all children living anywhere in the world regardless of sex, ethnicity and socioeconomic status published in English until December 2019. Studies that compared the diarrhoea incidence between the intervention group who were exposed to solar disinfection water treatment and the control group who were not exposed to such water treatment were included. The outcome of interest was the change in observed diarrhoea incidence and the risk from baseline to postintervention. Two independent reviewers critically appraised the selected studies. Effect sizes were expressed as risk ratios, and their 95% CIs were calculated for analysis.ResultsWe identified 10 eligible studies conducted in Africa, Latin America and Asia that included 5795 children aged from 1 to 15 years. In all identified studies, solar disinfection reduced the risk of diarrhoea in children, and the effect was statistically significant in eight of the studies. The estimated pooled risk ratio of childhood diarrhoea among participants that used the solar disinfection water treatment method was 0.62 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.72). The overall pooled results indicated that the intervention of solar disinfection water treatment had reduced the risk of childhood diarrhoea by 38%.ConclusionsThe intervention of solar disinfection water treatment significantly reduced the risk of childhood diarrhoea. However, the risk of bias and marked heterogeneity of the included studies precluded definitive conclusions. Further high-quality studies are needed to determine whether solar disinfection water treatment is an important method to reduce childhood diarrhoea.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42020159243

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Biomechanical differences at the hemiparetic knee in people with stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Physical Therapy Reviews ◽

10.1080/10833196.2021.1880037 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Clifford Waller ◽

Bahram Sangelaji ◽

Peter Lamb ◽

Suzanne Kuys ◽

Stephanie J. Woodley

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Analysis Protocol

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A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol examining the clinical characteristics and epidemiological features of olfactory dysfunction (OD) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Systematic Reviews ◽

10.1186/s13643-021-01624-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Rosemond Qian-Xiu Tan ◽

Wai Tak Victor Li ◽

Wing-Zi Shum ◽

Sheung Chit Chu ◽

Hang-Long Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Clinical Data ◽

Systematic Reviews ◽

Clinical Characteristics ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Olfactory Dysfunction ◽

Statistical Analyses ◽

Human Populations ◽

Meta Analyses ◽

Analysis Protocol

Abstract Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused recurring and major outbreaks in multiple human populations around the world. The plethora of clinical presentations of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been described extensively, of which olfactory dysfunction (OD) was established as an important and common extrapulmonary manifestation of COVID-19 infection. The aim of this protocol is to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis on peer-reviewed articles which described clinical data of OD in COVID-19 patients. Methods This research protocol has been prospectively registered with the Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO; CRD42020196202). CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov, Cochrane Central, EMBASE, MEDLINE and PubMed, as well as Chinese medical databases China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP and WANFANG, will be searched using keywords including ‘COVID-19’, ‘coronavirus disease’, ‘2019-nCoV’, ‘SARS-CoV-2’, ‘novel coronavirus’, ‘anosmia’, ‘hyposmia’, ‘loss of smell’, and ‘olfactory dysfunction’. Systematic review and meta-analysis will be conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and the Meta-analyses Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines. Articles will be screened according to pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria to extract studies that include new clinical data investigating the effect of COVID-19 on olfactory dysfunction. Included articles will be reviewed in full; data including patient demographics, clinical characteristics of COVID-19-related OD, methods of olfactory assessment and relevant clinical outcomes will be extracted. Statistical analyses will be performed using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 3. Discussion This systematic review and meta-analysis protocol will aim to collate and synthesise all available clinical evidence regarding COVID-19-related OD as an important neurosensory dysfunction of COVID-19 infection. A comprehensive search strategy and screening process will be conducted to incorporate broad clinical data for robust statistical analyses and representation. The outcome of the systematic review and meta-analysis will aim to improve our understanding of the symptomatology and clinical characteristics of COVID-19-related OD and identify knowledge gaps in its disease process, which will guide future research in this specific neurosensory defect. Systematic review registration PROSPERO registration number: CRD42020196202.

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