ReviewDer Nervenarzt2007
[Meta-analyses. A tool for maximizing therapy study evidence?].
Review in Der Nervenarzt, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Is evidence sufficient for evidence-based medicine?European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2009Review
- Isn't the efficacy of antidepressants clinically relevant? A critical comment on the results of the metaanalysis by Kirsch et al. 2008.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2008Article
- Do effectiveness ("real world") studies on antipsychotics tell us the real truth?European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2008Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Medical decisions have to rely on evidence-based medicine. However, evidence is not a clearly defined term. Several evidence criteria have been proposed, yet statistical meta-analyses are considered to be core criterion of empirical studies in that they combine single evidence from different studies into an encompassing conclusion. We argue however that meta-analyses have major limitations in this context. Five arguments are presented: (1) the nature of a study design affects the results and thus comprehensive meta-analyses covering studies with different designs are not informative; (2) combining different studies into a meta-analysis is methodologically not informative; (3) meta-analyses consider the variance between studies not as informative but as random noise; (4) the strategy to identify informative studies is a decisive determinant of meta-analyses; and (5) the value of conclusions from meta-analyses depends on the choice of statistics chosen as combined results from the various single studies. Instead, meta-analyses are useful tools for generating hypotheses in a posteriori analysis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
17687536What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.