392,528 papers found

Theta burst stimulation (TBS) has been proposed as a novel treatment for major depression (MD). However, randomized and sham-controlled trials (RCTs) published to date have yielded heterogeneous clinical results and we have thus carried out the present systematic review and exploratory meta-analysis of RCTs to evaluate…

OBJECTIVES: To demonstrate how individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses have impacted directly on the design and conduct of trials and highlight other advantages IPD might offer. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: Potential examples of the impact of IPD meta-analyses on trials were identified at an international worksho…

Meta-analysis of genetic data must account for differences among studies including study designs, markers genotyped, and covariates. The effects of genetic variants may differ from population to population, i.e., heterogeneity. Thus, meta-analysis of combining data of multiple studies is difficult. Novel statistical me…

INTRODUCTION: Alzheimer's dementia (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, and several organisations, such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, suggest that management of patients with AD should be tailored to their needs. To date, little research has been conducted on the treatment effect in di…

INTRODUCTION: Mindfulness-based interventions are widely used, yet concerns about potential negative effects-particularly those related to mindfulness meditation practice-have gained increasing attention. Individuals with difficult-to-treat depression (DTD) represent a population of particular relevance due to heighten…

BACKGROUND: Leveraging cumulative network meta-analysis (NMA) and value of information (VOI) analysis, this article aims to understand the evolving value of medical research and to identify gaps in the evidence for future research. METHODS: As an illustration, we identified 31 randomized controlled trials (RCT) from 1…

Meta-analysis is a statistical technique that combines the results of different environmental experiments regarding the populations, location, time, and so on. These results will differ more than the within-study variance, and the true effects being evaluated differ between studies. Thus, heterogeneity is present and s…

Synthesizing results across multiple studies is a popular way to increase the robustness of scientific findings. The most well-known method for doing this is meta-analysis. However, because meta-analysis requires conceptually comparable effect sizes with the same statistical form, meta-analysis may not be possible when…

PURPOSE: This tutorial will provide speech-language pathologists with practical considerations and pragmatic tools for interpreting and critically evaluating a meta-analysis. Meta-analysis, which is a statistical procedure that involves combining research data across multiple high-quality research studies, is often con…

BACKGROUND: Electroacupuncture has been reported to successfully control pain. Currently, no systematic reviews of the effects of electroacupuncture on frozen shoulder patients have been performed. This review aims to provide current evidence on the efficacy of electroacupuncture for the management of pain in frozen sh…

This commentary accompanies the special issue of Prevention Science on modern meta-analytic methods. The papers that comprise this special issue are considered in terms of the next-generation meta-analytic questions they support: questions about multivariate relationships, drawing on real-life data structures, with imp…

Meta-analysis has become an integral part of evidence-based decision-making processes and is being increasingly used in medical and non-medical disciplines. Aggregate data or summary statistics continue to be the mainstay of meta-analysis and are used by many professional societies to support clinical practice guidelin…

Evidence from randomised trials and their meta-analyses is typically formed of head-to-head comparisons of a couple of treatments; multiarm trials are infrequent. However, in real-life healthcare, there are many more than two treatment options for a particular condition. To be relevant for the shop-floor of practice, e…

The success of bootstrapping or replacing a human judge with a model (e.g., an equation) has been demonstrated in Paul Meehl's (1954) seminal work and bolstered by the results of several meta-analyses. To date, however, analyses considering different types of meta-analyses as well as the potential dependence of bootstr…

BACKGROUND: The reporting of network meta-analysis in systematic reviews has increased rapidly since 2009. This qualitative study was undertaken to identify authors' perceptions of the use of these methods and of what standards for conduct and reporting should apply. METHODS: This is a survey of authors of systematic…

PURPOSE: To evaluate the methodology and reporting quality of Chinese systematic reviews and meta analysis in oral medicine. METHODS: Chinese literatures of systematic reviews and meta analysis in oral medicine were searched in the CBM, VIP, WANFANG Database and CNKI from the establishment date to August 30, 2014. Two…

Systematic reviews of well-designed trials constitute a high level of scientific evidence and are important for medical decision making. Meta-analysis facilitates integration of the evidence using a transparent and systematic approach, leading to a broader interpretation of treatment effectiveness and safety than can b…

Similar to other reviews within the last 4 years, a thorough review by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, published in December 2011, found that compared to delivery of an unintended pregnancy, abortion does not increase women's risk of mental health problems. In contrast, a meta-analysis published in September 2011 c…

Evidence synthesis, both qualitatively and quantitatively through meta-analysis, is central to the development of evidence-based medicine. Unfortunately, meta-analysis is often complicated by the suspicion that the available studies represent a biased subset of the evidence, possibly due to publication bias or other sy…

We address the problem of meta-analysis of pairs of survival curves under heterogeneity. Starting point for the meta-analysis is a set of studies, each comparing the same two treatments, containing information about multiple survival outcomes. Under heterogeneity, we model the number of events using an extension of the…