Clinical Characteristics of Children with COVID-19: A Rapid Review and Meta-Analysis

Zijun Wang; Qi Zhou; Chenglin Wang; Qianling Shi; Shuya Lu; Yanfang Ma; Xufei Luo; Yangqin Xun; Weiguo Li; Muna Baskota; Yinmei Yang; Hui Zhai; Toshio Fukuoka; Hyeong Sik Ahn; Myeong Soo Lee; Zhengxiu Luo; Enmei Liu; Yaolong Chen

Two reviewers (Q Shi and S Lu) extracted the data independently with a standardized data collection form, including:1) basic information (e.g. first author); 2) symptoms; 3) routine blood tests (e.g. leucocyte count); 4) blood biochemistry (e.g. alanine aminotransferase); 5) coagulation function (e.g. activated partial thromboplastin time); 6) imaging findings (e.g. abnormal imaging). For dichotomous outcomes, we abstracted the number of events and total participants per group. For continuous outcomes, we abstracted means, standard deviations (SD), and the number of total participants in per group. Outcomes with no events were reported, but these were excluded from the metaanalysis. If means and standard deviations (SD) were not reported, we calculated them from the reported indicators. (16) If data were missing or reported in an unusable way, we excluded the study from the meta-analysis and report the findings descriptively.