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On tests of the overall treatment effect in meta‐analysis with normally distributed responses
Author(s) -
Hartung Joachim,
Knapp Guido
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.791
Subject(s) - meta analysis , random effects model , estimator , statistics , test statistic , contrast (vision) , econometrics , outcome (game theory) , statistic , fixed effects model , treatment effect , mathematics , test (biology) , variance (accounting) , statistical hypothesis testing , computer science , medicine , panel data , artificial intelligence , paleontology , mathematical economics , biology , traditional medicine , accounting , business
For the meta‐analysis of controlled clinical trials or epidemiological studies, in which the responses are at least approximately normally distributed, a refined test for the hypothesis of no overall treatment effect is proposed. The test statistic is based on a direct estimation function for the variance of the overall treatment effect estimator. As outcome measures, the absolute and the standardized difference between means are considered. In simulation studies it is shown that the proposed test keeps the prescribed significance level very well in contrast to the commonly used tests in the fixed effects and random effects model, respectively, which can become very liberal. Furthermore, just for using the proposed test it is not necessary to choose between the fixed effects and the random effects approach in advance. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.