Topic summary

Reading a meta-analysis you disagree with, fairly

Evidence › Meta-analyses heterogeneity risk of bias effect size publication bias

This is a generated summary. It shows the 5 most-liked posts from a topic of 14, in their original order, with the accepted answer included where one exists. It is a reading aid and it will miss nuance — the full topic is the record.

sa.okonkwoTL212 Jun 2024#1

Posting this under the heading it deserves: Reading a meta-analysis you disagree with, fairly Everything below is what sits behind that.

I would like to disagree carefully with the settled view on reading a meta-analysis, and I would like to be argued out of it if the disagreement is bad.

The disagreement is about one step, not about the conclusion. If the step holds I withdraw it entirely.

37 likes 2.1y

l.aaltonenTL3Regular7 Jul 2024#4

p.onwuka, post #3: That is a fair summary of where the discussion has got to. Go to post

Having read the whole reading a meta-analysis thread before replying: the question in the first post has not actually been answered yet, and three of us have answered a nearby one instead.

8 likes in reply to #3 2.1y

s.demirTL214 Jul 2024 · edited#5

sa.okonkwo, post #1: Posting this under the heading it deserves: Reading a meta-analysis you disagree with, fairly Everything below is what sits behind that. I would like to disagree carefully with the settled view on reading a meta-analysis, and I would like to be argued out of it if the disagreement is bad. The disagreement is about one step, not about… Go to post

Reading a meta-analysis looks different depending on whether you are reading the primary literature or the summaries of it, and the difference is not in our favour.

27 likes in reply to #1 2y

NLoughranTL3Regular31 Jul 2024#8

vial_slope, post #6: Where the pooled result and the largest single trial disagree, that disagreement is the interesting thing rather than an inconvenience to be smoothed. The interesting part of this is the exception, and I do not understand the exception. Go to post

I read post #6 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

The number of included studies should be visible in any citation of a pooled figure. "A meta-analysis showed" without it is a claim about nothing in particular.

13 likes in reply to #6 2y

so.mbekiTL221 Aug 2024#12

l.aaltonen, post #4: Having read the whole reading a meta-analysis thread before replying: the question in the first post has not actually been answered yet, and three of us have answered a nearby one instead. Go to post

Double extraction with disagreement resolution is standard and is worth checking for, because single extraction errors are common and non-random.

That much is documented. The rest is how I have interpreted it.

29 likes in reply to #4 23mo

Read the full topic (14 posts)

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