Table 6.
GRADE Evidence Profile for Common Cold: Zinc for the Common Cold22
| Quality Assessment |
No. of Patients |
Effect |
Quality | Importance | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of Studies | Design | Risk of Bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Publication Bias | Zinc | Placebo | Relative (95% CI) | Absolute | ||
| Cough duration | ||||||||||||
| 3 adult studies | RCT | No serious risk | Seriousa | No serious risk | Seriousb | Undetected | 102 | 97 | Cough duration reduced in subjects receiving zinc Pooled estimate was –46% (95% CI, –28% to –64%) |
Low | ||
Question: Is there evidence of clinically relevant treatment effects for zinc in cough duration?
See Table 2 legend for expansion of abbreviations.
a
Inconsistency; heterogeneity was 64% as assessed by the I2 statistic.
b
Individual studies were very small and CIs were wide.