title: Modelling study quality in meta-analysis.
abstract: When summarizing studies in a meta-analysis, the methodological quality of the studies can vary widely. This variation is often described by assigning quality scores to studies. This paper presents a probability model for the effect of quality on a summary effect measure. The model motivates criteria used to assess quality, and can be used to incorporate quality into the calculation of a summary effect. We derive a number of summarization methods and compare them for simulated data and an actual set of studies.
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology and Statistics, Ontario Cancer Institute, 610 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2M9, Canada.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tritchler
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015982:Bias; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D004041:Dietary Fats / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011336:Probability; D012307:Risk Factors; D018401:Sample Size
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats