Table 2.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria used when conducting literature searches of published and grey literature. Pre-defined search string used are listed in Figure 2—source data 1.
| Inclusion criteria | Exclusion criteria |
|---|---|
| General criteria across all meta-analyses | |
| – Mosquito belong to the A. gambiae complex or A. funestus group – Study conducted in Africa – Bioassay must be of the standard dose for the particular pyrethroid (WHO, 2013a, 2013b; Brogdon, 2010) – Net must be a pyrethroid LLIN |
– Studies which report percentage mortality but not the numbers tested / caught†
– Experimental hut trials which do not have adequate design to reduce bias (i.e. treatments arms were not rotated between huts; sleeper bias unaccounted for by preliminary testing; randomisation or rotation; huts were not cleaned between treatments) – Experimental huts of the Ifakara design‡ |
| M1 – Bioassay and experimental hut trial mortality | |
| – Mosquito mortality measured in both an experimental hut study and separate bioassay (e.g. WHO tube assay, WHO cone assay, CDC bottle assay) | – Cone assays where the net had been washed |
| M2 – Impact of PBO in pyrethroid bioassays | |
| – adult mosquito stage exposure to PBO | |
| M3 – Experimental hut trials of standard and PBO LLINS | |
| – Study compares a combination LLIN (PermaNet 3.0 or Olyset Plus) with a conventional LLIN (PermaNet 2.0 or Olyset Net)*
– LLINs should be holed (Six 4 × 4 cm holes) |
– Studies without both standard and PBO LLINs as non-parallel studies as studies from different sites may bias the difference between LLINs – Trials without untreated control nets – Studies which did not include feeding success |
* currently there are only two commercially available LLINs with PBO, PermaNet 3.0 (Vestergaard-Frandsen) and Olyset Plus (Sumitomo Chemicals Ltd). To limit the difference between LLIN types only nets made by the same manufacturer are directly compared.
† to increase the size of the bioassay dataset the authors of papers which failed to give sample sizes were contacted directly.
‡ The probability that a mosquito will die in an experimental hut will depend on the hut design. To minimise the difference between studies, the most common design of hut is used, excluding the small number of studies which use the new Ifakara design (eg. Okumu et al., 2013).