2.5. Statistics
The continuous variables were described as medians and the interquartile range (IQR), while the categorical variables were expressed as frequencies and percentages. The Shapiro–Wilk test was applied as a normality test. The Wilcoxon rank-sum and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to analyze continuous variables in independent and related samples, respectively. McNemar and Chi-squared tests were applied to analyze categorical variables in paired and unpaired samples, respectively. 