to determine the effectiveness of exercise for depression compared with no treatment and comparator treatments). **for further reading, please visit: ( ) How is a meta-analysis performed?īelow are the basic steps involved in a meta-analysis (3):ġ- Identifying/formulating a problem (i.e. Additionally, if the individual studies were underpowered, combining them in a meta-analysis can increase the overall statistical power to detect an effect. This is because results can vary from one study to another for various reasons, including confounding factors, and the different study samples used.īy combining individual studies, and thus using more data, the precision and accuracy of the estimates in the individual studies can be improved upon. To make a valid decision about using an intervention, ideally we should not rely on the results obtained from single studies. Why should we carry out & use meta-analyses? Since then, they have become a common way for synthesizing evidence and summarizing the results of individual studies (2). Meta-analyses began to appear as a leading part of research in the late 70s. Therefore, meta-analyses can be seen as the pinnacle of healthcare evidence (1). As we go up the pyramid, each level of evidence is less subject to bias than the level below it. This is a pyramid which enables us to weigh up the different levels of evidence available to us. Compared to other study designs (such as randomized controlled trials or cohort studies), the meta-analysis comes in at the top of the ‘ levels of evidence’ pyramid in evidence-based healthcare.
Meta-analyses play a fundamental role in evidence-based healthcare. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique for combining data from multiple studies on a particular topic.
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