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Research Synthesis Methods
Article . 2019 . Peer-reviewed
License: Wiley Online Library User Agreement
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Graphical augmentations to sample‐size‐based funnel plot in meta‐analysis

Authors: Lifeng Lin;

Graphical augmentations to sample‐size‐based funnel plot in meta‐analysis

Abstract

Assessing publication bias is a critical procedure in meta‐analyses for rating the synthesized overall evidence. Because statistical tests for publication bias are usually not powerful and only give P values that inform either the presence or absence of the bias, examining the asymmetry of funnel plots has been popular to investigate potentially missing studies and the direction of the bias. Most funnel plots present treatment effects against their standard errors, and the contours depicting studies' significance levels have been used in the plots to distinguish publication bias from other factors (such as heterogeneity and subgroup effects) that may cause the plots' asymmetry. However, treatment effects and their standard errors are frequently associated even if no publication bias exists (eg, both variables depend on the four data cells in a 2 × 2 table for the odds ratio), so standard‐error‐based funnel plots may lead to false positive conclusions when such association may not be negligible. In addition, the missingness of studies may relate to their sample sizes besides P values (which are partly determined by standard errors); studies with more samples are more likely published. Therefore, funnel plots based on sample sizes can be an alternative tool. However, the contours for standard‐error‐based funnel plots cannot be directly applied to sample‐size‐based ones. This article introduces contours for sample‐size‐based funnel plots of various effect sizes, which may help meta‐analysts properly interpret such plots' asymmetry. We provide five examples to illustrate the use of the proposed contours.

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Keywords

Risk, Statistics as Topic, Reproducibility of Results, Breast Neoplasms, Anxiety, Intensive Care Units, Treatment Outcome, Meta-Analysis as Topic, Research Design, Sample Size, Computer Graphics, Odds Ratio, Humans, Female, Neoplasm Metastasis, Publication Bias, Algorithms, Stress, Psychological

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    popularity
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    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
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    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Top 10%
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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
41
Top 10%
Top 10%
Top 10%
bronze