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Table 3 Quality assessment of included studies based on GRADE approach

From: The effect of massage on feeding intolerance in preterm infants: a systematic review and meta-analysis study

No. of studies

Design

Risk of bias

Inconsistency

Indirectness

Imprecision

Other

considerations

Abdominal massage

Routine Care

Pooled effect

Relative

(95% CI)

Final judgment

GRV

3

Randomized

trials

No Serious

No Serious

No serious indirectness

No serious imprecision

No serious

17.18/76

19.97/76

−2.11 [−2.78, −1.45]

High

Number of gastric residual

2

Randomized

trials

No Serious

No Serious

No serious indirectness

Serious imprecisionb

No serious

0.32/25

0.35/24

−0.05 [− 0.34, 0.24]

Moderate

Vomiting frequency

2

Randomized

trials

No Serious

Very serious inconsistencya

No serious indirectness

No serious imprecision

No serious

0.16/44

1.17/43

−0.84 [−1.37, − 0.31]

Low

Abdominal circumference

4

Randomized

trials

No Serious

Very serious inconsistencya

No serious indirectness

Serious imprecisionb

No serious

24.53/86

26.30/85

−1.51 [−4.86, 1.84]

Very low

  1. a I2 is higher than 40%, b Not met optimal information size/ CI is very wide