Confidence intervals for the amount of heterogeneity in meta-analysis
Confidence intervals for the amount of heterogeneity in meta-analysis
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DOI：
10.1002/sim.2514
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发表时间：
2007-01-15
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Viechtbauer, Wolfgang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Viechtbauer, Wolfgang
在系统审查中合并的效应大小估计经常被发现比仅基于抽样差异而预期的更具变数。这通常被解释为效应大小是不同的证据。然后，通常使用随机效应模型来解释效应大小的异质性。提出了一种新的构造效应大小异质性的置信度区间的方法，该方法即使在满足模型假设的小样本情况下也能保证名义覆盖概率。总结了现有的构造这种置信度区间的各种方法，并将各种方法应用于一个例子来说明它们的用途。一项模拟研究表明，新提出的方法在更接近实际的条件下产生了最准确的覆盖概率，其中关于正态分布效应大小估计和已知抽样方差的假设仅渐近成立。版权所有(C)2006 John Wiley&Sons，Ltd.
Effect size estimates to be combined in a systematic review are often found to be more variable than one would expect based on sampling differences alone. This is usually interpreted as evidence that the effect sizes are heterogeneous. A random-effects model is then often used to account for the heterogeneity in the effect sizes. A novel method for constructing confidence intervals for the amount of heterogeneity in the effect sizes is proposed that guarantees nominal coverage probabilities even in small samples when model assumptions are satisfied. A variety of existing approaches for constructing such confidence intervals are summarized and the various methods are applied to an example to illustrate their use. A simulation study reveals that the newly proposed method yields the most accurate coverage probabilities under conditions more analogous to practice, where assumptions about normally distributed effect size estimates and known sampling variances only hold asymptotically. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.