Pooled estimates of vitamin D (25(OH)D) deficiency in acute and critically ill children and those with sepsis or respiratory tract infections
| Patient category | Number of studies (total number of individuals; number of deficient individuals) | Pooled proportion (%, 95% CI) Random effects | 95% PI | Pooled proportion (%, 95% CI) Fixed effects | Heterogeneity (I2) % (95% CI) | Q value df P value for heterogeneity | Egger’s P value |
| All children (includes those with sepsis and respiratory tract infections) | 52 (7434; 3473) | 54.6 (48.5 to 60.6) | 17.5 to 87.2 | 45.7 (44.4 to 46.9) | 95.3 (94.5 to 96.0) | 1086.6 51 <0.0001 | 0.01 |
| Critically ill children with sepsis only | 18 (889; 565) | 64.0 (52.0 to 74.4) | 17.1 to 93.9 | 63.0 (59.3 to 66.6) | 89.3 (84.6 to 92.5) | 158.52 17 <0.0001 | 0.81 |
| Critically ill children with respiratory tract infections only | 25 (2699; 1076) | 48.7 (38.2 to 59.3) | 9.96 to 89.1 | 37.0 (35.0 to 39.1) | 94.3 (92.7 to 95.6) | 423.07 24 <0.0001 | 0.05 |
Vitamin D deficiency defined in our study as: 25(OH)D <50 nmol/L (20 ng/mL). I2 statistic used to estimate heterogeneity between pooled studies: I2≥75% was considered high heterogeneity.
df, degrees of freedom; I2, heterogeneity; PI, prediction interval.