Table 3.

Quality assessment of included non-randomised controlled trials

Methodological item	Score for studiesa
	Bountogo et al. Burkina Faso (2010) [59]	Meissner et al. Burkina Faso (2006) [60]	Alving (1949) Cited by Baird et al. (2012) [61]
Clearly stated aim	2	2	1
Inclusion of consecutive patients	2	2	1
Prospective collection of data	2	2	0
End points appropriate to the aim of the study	1	2	1
Unbiased assessment of the study end point	2	2	0
Follow-up period appropriate to the aim of the study	2	2	1
Loss to follow-up less than 5%	2	2	0
Prospective calculation of the study size	2	2	0
Adequate control group	1	2	1
Contemporary groups	1	1	1
Baseline equivalence of groups	1	2	0
Adequate statistical analyses	2	2	0
Total score	20	23	6

^aThe items are scored 0 (not reported), 1 (reported but inadequate) or 2 (reported and adequate). The global ideal score was 24 for comparative studies