title: Conducting a meta-analysis: basics and good practices.
abstract: Meta-analysis is a statistical method to compare and combine effect sizes from a pool of relevant empirical studies. It is now a standard approach to synthesize research findings in many disciplines, including medical and healthcare research. This paper is the third paper of a mini-series introducing systematic review and meta-analysis. First, common effect sizes used in meta-analysis are presented. Fixed-, random- and mixed-effects models are then introduced. Next, a real data set from a published meta-analysis will be used to illustrate the procedures and interpretations. Last, software packages that may be used to conduct meta-analyses will be highlighted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore. mikewlcheung@nus.edu.sg
authors.forename: Mike W-L
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: Roger C M
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: Yonghao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: Anselm
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mak
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012107:Research Design; D012984:Software