Effect of oral vitamin C administration along with iron supplementation for treating anaemia among adolescent girls - Protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Anemia among adolescent girls is a worldwide public health problem. Although anemia has several causes, the most common and significant is iron deficiency. Treatment of anemia with iron alone may result in reduced compliance on account of adverse effects. Various studies have revealed that use of vitamin C in addition to iron improves its absorption and reduces the ill effects of the therapy. However, a concrete evidence of adding vitamin C to iron for treating iron deficiency anemia is lacking. Protocol for current systematic review was prepared and registered with the aim to generate evidence on role of vitamin C in addition to iron for treatment of anemia. Present protocol has been prepared based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines and registered with International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews. Data extraction will be done by the reviewers independently. Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool will be used for risk of bias assessment. For primary outcome and each of the other outcomes pairwise random effects meta-analysis and network meta-analysis will be performed. Sensitivity analysis will be performed in case of any heterogeneity is detected to find out the difference of the effect estimation between subsets. The evidence for role of vitamin C as an adjunct in iron and folic acid for treatment of anemia in adolescent girls will be generated once the systematic review and meta-analysis is completed.