Table 3.
Sensitivity analyses.
| Strategies of sensitivity analyses | Fever prevalence [95% CIs] (%) | Difference of pooled prevalence compared to the main result | Number of studies analyzed | Total number of COVID-19 patients | Heterogeneity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I2 | p-value | |||||
| Excluding small studies | 9.7 [7.90–11.62] | 3.6% lower | 37 | 11,893 | 93% | <0.0001 |
| Excluding low- and moderate-quality studies | 10.1 [8.3–11.9] | 0.7% higher | 55 | 10,551 | 90% | <0.0001 |
| Excluding studies without reporting COVID-19 confirmation method | 9.9 [8.58–11.37] | 1.4% lower | 79 | 13,987 | 88% | <0.0001 |
| Excluding non-english studies | 9.8 [8.50–11.21] | 2.6% lower | 83 | 14,185 | 87% | <0.0001 |
| Excluding outlier studies | 8.8 [7.57–10.10] | 12.6% lower | 79 | 13,693 | 85% | <0.0001 |
| Considering only cross-sectional studies | 10.0 [8.65–11.50] | 0.4% lower | 74 | 12,193 | 87% | <0.0001 |