Impact of isolation on hospitalised patients who are infectious: systematic review with meta-analysis

Purssell, Edward; Gould, Dinah; Chudleigh, Jane

A total of 3 879 papers were retrieved from the three databases; 39 of which were screened and 12 excluded, leaving 26 in the final analysis. Of these 13 studies provided data suitable for the calculation of relative risks, 5 giving psychological outcomes, [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] and 12 non-physiological; [18, [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] and 8 provided data for the calculation of standardised mean differences, 6 giving psychological outcomes, [20, 29, [32] [33] [34] [35] ] and 3 non-psychological. [25, 28, 36] A further 6 studies did not provide raw data but are included in the results; 3 each giving psychological outcomes [37] [38] [39] and non-psychological outcomes. [16, 40, 41] As it had been decided not to attempt statistical pooling of study results, the data from studies are shown as forest plots but without meta-analysis. The forest plots contain results from the studies where sufficient data were given to calculate either the relative risk or standardised mean difference. A number of studies provided data on those under contact precautions, but no comparative data and so were not included. [42] [43] [44] [45] Because of the large number of non-psychological outcomes for which RR could be calculated, it was decided that a change of 20% (i.e. a RR of 0.8 or less, or 1.2 or more) would be clinically significant, regardless of the statistical significance.