Rhodes, KM;
Mawdsley, D;
Turner, RM;
Jones, HE;
Savović, J;
Higgins, JPT;
(2018)
Label-invariant models for the analysis of meta-epidemiological data.
Stat Med
, 37
(1)
pp. 60-70.
10.1002/sim.7491.
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Abstract
Rich meta-epidemiological data sets have been collected to explore associations between intervention effect estimates and study-level characteristics. Welton et al proposed models for the analysis of meta-epidemiological data, but these models are restrictive because they force heterogeneity among studies with a particular characteristic to be at least as large as that among studies without the characteristic. In this paper we present alternative models that are invariant to the labels defining the 2 categories of studies. To exemplify the methods, we use a collection of meta-analyses in which the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool has been implemented. We first investigate the influence of small trial sample sizes (less than 100 participants), before investigating the influence of multiple methodological flaws (inadequate or unclear sequence generation, allocation concealment, and blinding). We fit both the Welton et al model and our proposed label-invariant model and compare the results. Estimates of mean bias associated with the trial characteristics and of between-trial variances are not very sensitive to the choice of model. Results from fitting a univariable model show that heterogeneity variance is, on average, 88% greater among trials with less than 100 participants. On the basis of a multivariable model, heterogeneity variance is, on average, 25% greater among trials with inadequate/unclear sequence generation, 51% greater among trials with inadequate/unclear blinding, and 23% lower among trials with inadequate/unclear allocation concealment, although the 95% intervals for these ratios are very wide. Our proposed label-invariant models for meta-epidemiological data analysis facilitate investigations of between-study heterogeneity attributable to certain study characteristics.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Label-invariant models for the analysis of meta-epidemiological data. |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1002/sim.7491 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sim.7491 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2017 The Authors.Statistics in Medicinepublished by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Bayesian methods, Cochrane, heterogeneity, meta-epidemiology, randomised trials |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Inst of Clinical Trials and Methodology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Inst of Clinical Trials and Methodology > MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10039946 |
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