3. Results of investigations of heterogeneity.
| Study‐level covariate | Studies (n) | Sensitivity (95% CI) | Specificity (95% CI) | Interpretation | |
| Test typea | |||||
| Enzyme immuno‐assay | 86 | 85.4 (82.7 to 87.8) | 95.8 (94.8 to 96.6) | Accuracy does not seem influenced by test type (P value = 0.23) | |
| Optical immuno‐assay | 19 | 86.2 (82.7 to 89.2) | 93.7 (91.5 to 95.4) | ||
| Throat culture | |||||
| Without enrichment broth | 88 | 85.5 (82.8 to 87.8) | 95.6 (94.8 to 96.3) | Accuracy does not seem influenced by whether an enrichment broth was used (P value = 0.15) | |
| With enrichment broth | 10 | 86.3 (83.3 to 88.7) | 92.7 (87.9 to 95.7) | ||
| Mean age of participantsb | |||||
| Below the median | 16 | 87.1 (81.7 to 91.1) | 93.2 (90.5 to 95.2) | No evidence of association with age (P value = 0.39) | |
| Above the median | 13 | 83.7 (78.5 to 87.9) | 95.0 (92.7 to 96.6) | ||
| % of patients with McIsaac score > 2 | |||||
| ≤ 70% | 4 | 81.3 (69.8 to 89.1) | 94.9 (91.1 to 97.2) | No evidence of association with clinical severity (P value = 0.35) | |
| > 70% | 8 | 88.8 (82.9 to 92.9) | 94.2 (89.4 to 96.9) | ||
| Prevalence of group A streptococcusc | |||||
| Below the median | 54 | 84.9 (81.1 to 88.1) | 95.5 (94.2 to 96.4) | Accuracy does not seem influenced by the prevalence of group A streptococcus (P value = 0.70) | |
| Above the median | 51 | 86.2 (83.5 to 88.5) | 95.4 (94.0 to 96.5) | ||
aResults based on indirect comparisons; bthe median of mean age was 6.6 years; cthe median of group A streptococcus prevalence using throat culture as the reference standard was 29.5%.
CI: confidence interval