Table 3.

Subgroup rate of mobile phone bacterial contamination among healthcare workers in Africa (2009–2022)

Variables	Subgroup	No of included study	Sample size	mobile phone's bacterial contamination rate (95% CI)	Heterogeneity across the studies		Heterogeneity between group (p value)
					I2 (%)	p value
Sub-region	Eastern	9	1613	83.62(74.40, 92.84)	98.4	< 0.001	< 0.001
	Western	4	168	77.97(58.86, 97.07)	98.6	< 0.001
	Northern	8	632	87.32(81.64, 92.99)	96.0	< 0.001
	Southern	2	166	30.0(21.0, 38.94)	0
	Middle	3	288	98.1(94.02, 102.17)	84.0	0.012
Year of publication	2009–2014	6	325	62.46(39.97, 84.96)	98.2	< 0.001	0.027
	2015–2022	20	2298	83.03(84.78, 91.29)	97.9	< 0.001
Types of Health facility	Hospital	24	2822	84.54(81.16, 87.93)	98.1	< 0.001	< 0.001
	Health center	1	57	98.3(94.94, 101.66)	0
	Clinic	1	8	10.30(-10.76, 31.36)	0
Sample size	≤ 114	19	1081	86.10(82.87, 89.32	97.4	< 0.001	0.481
	> 114	7	1786	82.15(71.65, 92.64)	97.6	< 0.001
Bacteria isolation method	Selective	5	366	95.19(91.32, 99.06)	95.0	< 0.001	0.001
	non-selective	6	827	70.39(53.14, 87.64)	99.0	< 0.001
	Selective and non-selective	15	1794	86.33(81.13, 91.53)	97.6	< 0.001