Table 3. Summary of findings.
| Steroids for general anesthesia and surgery | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bibliography: | ||||
| Outcomes | No of Participants (studies) | Quality of the evidence (GRADE) | Anticipated absolute effects | |
| Follow up | Risk with Control | Mean difference with Steroids (The TSA-adjusted CI) | ||
| Quality of recovery after general anesthesia5 | 301 (3 studies) | ⊕⊝⊝⊝ | The mean quality of recovery after general anesthesia in the control groups was | The mean quality of recovery after general anesthesia in the intervention groups was |
| QoR-40 scale. Scale from: 40 (worst) to 200 (best). | VERY LOW1,2,3,4 | 162 QoR-40 score | 14.2 higher (-1.6 to 30 higher) | |
| due to risk of bias, indirectness, imprecision, publication bias | ||||
| Quality of recovery after general anesthesia (sensitivity analysis6) | 301 (3 studies) | ⊕⊝⊝⊝ | The mean quality of recovery after general anesthesia (sensitivity analysis) in the control groups was | The mean quality of recovery after general anesthesia (sensitivity analysis) in the intervention groups was |
| QoR-40 scale. Scale from: 40 (worst) to 200 (best). | VERY LOW1,2,4 | 162 QoR-40 score | 14.2 higher (10.4 to 18.1 higher) | |
| due to risk of bias, indirectness, publication bias | ||||
TSA: Trial Sequential Analysis; CI: Confidence interval
GRADE Working Group grades of evidence.
High quality: Further research is very unlikely to change our confidence in the estimate of effect.
Moderate quality: Further research is likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and may change the estimate.
Low quality: Further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate.
Very low quality: We are very uncertain about the estimate.
1 There was no study with low risk of bias in overall domain.
2 There was no study which evaluated the QoR-40 score at three days after general anesthesia.
3 The TSA-adjusted CI was wide.
4 Publication bias could not be assessed because only three trials were included.
5 A clinically meaningful anticipated mean difference of the QoR-40 score was set at 5 points.
6 A clinically meaningful anticipated mean difference of the QoR-40 score was set at 15 points in the sensitivity analysis.