Fig. 3.

Forest plot of subgroup analysis of the effect a of the surgery, b of the bolus mode versus the bolus plus continuous mode, and c the effect of a bolus of ≥0.5 µg/kg versus a bolus <0.5 µg/kg, on Dex opioid-sparing effect in the postanesthesia care unit. The square in front of each study (first author and year of publication) is the RR for individual trials, and the corresponding horizontal line is the 95% CI. The lozenge at the bottom represents pooled OR with 95% CI. The test for subgroup difference represents the interaction test between groups. Studies with more than one Dex arm are displayed as author name, year of publication_1, and author name, year of publication_2 (see Table 1 for exact description of each arm). CI confidence interval, Dex dexmedetomidine, RR risk ratio, SE standard error