title: Principles of metaanalysis.
abstract: Metaanalysis is a relatively new tool to help make evidence based decisions. This technique involves the systematic examination of available evidence on a given clinical topic, and the summary of that evidence using statistical techniques that pool data from multiple studies to yield a single result. We briefly discuss the principal steps in a metaanalysis: identifying all the studies; assessing the studies for quality; organizing the studies into subgroups; and summarizing the results.
authors.affiliation: Southern California Evidence Based Practice Center, Division of General Internal Medicine of the West Los Angeles VAMC, CA, USA.
authors.forename: P G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Shekelle
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Morton
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic