Table 3.

Subgroup analysis of the studies to detect the source of heterogeneity for overall satisfaction

Source	Subcategories	Number of studies	Effect size	Lower CI	Upper CI	Z	I 2
Health service transformation plan	Before	12	0.85	0.81	0.90	37.81	96.0%
	After	15	0.80	0.75	0.86	28.17	99.1%
COVID-19	Before	21	0.84	0.80	0.88	42.70	98.7%
	After	6	0.78	0.63	0.93	10.30	98.4%
Location	North	4	0.64	0.33	0.94	4.08	99.7%
	West and north-west	5	0.87	0.76	0.97	16.64	97.4%
	Tehran and central cities	12	0.86	0.82	0.90	42.49	97.9%
	Others	3	0.89	0.86	0.93	55.82	76.6%
	East	3	0.82	0.72	0.92	16.23	93.7%
Hospital	Affiliated with the university of medical sciences	24	0.82	0.78	0.86	41.19	98.7%
	Military	3	0.84	0.72	0.96	13.98	95.9%
Ward	Different	15	0.80	0.74	0.85	27.51	99.1%
	COVID	2	0.88	0.84	0.92	44.28	0.0
	CCU and oncology	2	0.78	0.70	0.87	17.24	86.9%
	Emergency	6	0.90	0.85	0.95	34.16	96.6%
	Medical-surgical	2	0.83	0.65	1.0	8.94	97.0%
Sample size	Less than 300 patients	11	0.86	0.81	0.92	31.44	94.1%
	More than 300 patients	16	0.80	0.75	0.85	32.11	99.1%