| Ref ID | 615 |
| First Author | A. M. Khamis |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(18)30929-6/fulltext |
| Keywords |
• Cardiology • Error • Expertise • Statistical • Spin |
| Problem(s) |
• Spin or subjective interpretation of findings • Errors in study inclusion or omission of relevant studies • Errors in effect estimate calculations or data synthesis • Lack of statistical expertise in handling of quantitative data |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Meta-epidemiological analysis |
| First Author Country | Lebanon |
| Checklists |
• AMSTAR 2 |
| Aim | To investigate the reasons for the variations between the results of meta-analyses from 21 systematic reviews that were addressing the same clinical question |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | The percentage of absolute difference between each of the 22 pooled effect estimates (included odds ratio, risk ratio, hazard ratio) and their median value had an average of 3.2%. Most of the reviews did not clearly report which effect measures they used for the trials included in their meta-analysis; some reviews used for one or more trials an effect measure different than the one used in the meta-analysis, which led to pooling of HR and RR or HR and OR within the same meta-analysis. AMSTAR does not address in enough details the statistical methods used in systematic reviews and subsequently is not sensitive to these methods’ variations as described in this study. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 21 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 21 |
| Treatment impacted | Yes |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | No |
| Interpretation impacted description |