title: A general parametric approach to the meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
abstract: Meta-analysis provides a systematic and quantitative approach to the summary of results from randomized studies. Whilst many authors have published actual meta-analyses concerning specific therapeutic questions, less has been published about comprehensive methodology. This article presents a general parametric approach, which utilizes efficient score statistics and Fisher's information, and relates this to different methods suggested by previous authors. Normally distributed, binary, ordinal and survival data are considered. Both the fixed effects and random effects model for treatments are described.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Statistics, University of Reading, Whiteknights, U.K.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Whitehead
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Whitehead
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012107:Research Design