Statistical Analysis
Categorical data were reported as frequency and percentage, and comparisons between groups were estimated by chi-square or Fisher tests, as appropriate. Continuous variables were reported as the median and interquartile range, and Mann-Whitney U test was used to assess differences between groups. The statistical significance level was set at p<0.05.
The statistical software package R (version 4.0.3) was used for data analysis (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria)13.