Statistical analysis
The statistical analyses were conducted in SPSS 26 (SPSS Inc., Chicago,
IL, USA). Graphs were created with GraphPad Prism version 7 (GraphPad
software inc., San Diego, CA, USA). Data were checked for normality with
use of the D’Agostina & Pearson test and visual inspection of Q–Q
plots. Statistical significance was defined as a p-value <
0.05. Normally distributed data were presented as mean with standard
deviation (SD) and significance was tested by a t-test. Non-normally
distributed data were presented as median with interquartile range (IQR)
and significance was tested by a Mann-Whitney U test. Dichotomous data
were shown as an absolute count with the percentage of the total, in
which differences were tested with the Pearson Chi-square test.