Statistical considerations in meta-analysis.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have recently emerged as key sources of evidence to inform clinical care, from bedside individualized decisions to policy making. This article discusses the principles behind statistical methods for quantitative evidence synthesis, including meta-analysis and meta-regression. The authors present pertinent concepts in an intuitive and nonmathematical fashion by use of examples from the infectious diseases literature.
Barza
Michael
M
Department of Medicine, Caritas Carney Hospital, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
Trikalinos
Thomas A
TA
Lau
Joseph
J
D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D013223:Statistics as Topic