Assessing the robustness of direct meta-analysis in the presence of heterogeneity.
J Comp Eff Res
; 7(10): 1009-1025, 2018 10.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30130972
ABSTRACT
AIM:
To assess robustness of findings in recent systematic reviews of atypical antipsychotics in schizophrenia patients in the presence of heterogeneity.METHODS:
Relative efficacy was measured in seven direct comparisons of mean difference (MD) in average positive and negative syndrome scale total score and comparisons between conventional meta-analysis results and four alternate meta-analytic strategies using the difference in MD (ΔMD).RESULTS:
MDs in positive and negative syndrome scale total score were smaller in the conventional meta-analyses than those for three of the four analytic strategies. Such differences were small (all ΔMD <4). No considerable differences in effect size were observed in the limit meta-analysis comparison (|ΔMD| <1).CONCLUSION:
The analyses validated the systematic review results and demonstrate the value of confirmatory sensitivity analysis.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Schizophrenia
/
Antipsychotic Agents
Type of study:
Systematic_reviews
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
J Comp Eff Res
Year:
2018
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United kingdom