The Study
Efficacy of Oral Zinc Supplementation in Radiologically Confirmed Pneumonia: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial
This study looked at whether giving zinc to sick kids helped them get better faster, but we don’t know if the kids were randomly assigned to groups. That means we can’t say zinc definitely caused any change — we can only say the two groups looked similar.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Doctors gave zinc to some sick kids with pneumonia and sugar pills to others to see if zinc helped them feel better quicker.
Where does this study sit?
Systematic Reviews & Meta-analyses
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control
Max 58Cross-Sectional
Max 44Case Reports & Series
Max 30Expert Opinion
Max 546 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1The difference is so small it could be due to chance — zinc didn't clearly help kids recover faster or avoid treatment failure.
- 2Kids who got zinc took 84 hours to recover; kids who got sugar pills took 85 hours.
- 3Zinc didn't change the chance of treatment failure (5.2% lower risk, but the range includes no effect).
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Journal of Tropical Pediatrics
Year
2018
Authors
N. Bagri, Neha Bagri, M. Jana, Arun Gupta, N. Wadhwa, R. Lodha, S. Kabra, A. Chandran, S. Aneja, M. K. Chaturvedi, Jitender Sodhi, Sean Fitzwater, J. Chandra, B. Rath, U. S. Kainth, S. Saini, R. Black, M. Santosham, S. Bhatnagar
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.