Open Access
Meta‐analytic approaches to determine gender differences in the age‐incidence characteristics of schizophrenia and related psychoses
Author(s) -
Jackson Dan,
Kirkbride James,
Croudace Tim,
Morgan Craig,
Boydell Jane,
Errazuriz Antonia,
Murray Robin M.,
Jones Peter B.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of methods in psychiatric research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.275
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1557-0657
pISSN - 1049-8931
DOI - 10.1002/mpr.1376
Subject(s) - schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , meta analysis , incidence (geometry) , psychology , demography , psychosis , clinical psychology , medicine , psychiatry , mathematics , geometry , sociology
Abstract A recent systematic review and meta‐analysis of the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and other psychoses in England investigated the variation in the rates of psychotic disorders. However, some of the questions of interest, and the data collected to answer these, could not be adequately addressed using established meta‐analysis techniques. We developed a novel statistical method, which makes combined use of fractional polynomials and meta‐regression. This was used to quantify the evidence of gender differences and a secondary peak onset in women, where the outcome of interest is the incidence of schizophrenia. Statistically significant and epidemiologically important effects were obtained using our methods. Our analysis is based on data from four studies that provide 50 incidence rates, stratified by age and gender. We describe several variations of our method, in particular those that might be used where more data is available, and provide guidance for assessing the model fit. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.