ArticleHealth services research2010
Assessing Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects: Are Authors Misinterpreting Their Results?
Article in Health services research, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- A systematic review of individual patient data meta-analyses on surgical interventions.Systematic reviews · 2013Pooled it
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- Putting Methylphenidate for Cancer-Related Fatigue to Rest?Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2024Article
- Effect of sacubitril-valsartan on left ventricular remodeling and NT-proBNP in patients with heart failure complicated with hypertension and reduced ejection fraction.American journal of translational research · 2024Article
- A quantitative assessment of the frequency and magnitude of heterogeneous treatment effects in studies of the health effects of social policies.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- Heterogeneous treatment effects in social policy studies: An assessment of contemporary articles in the health and social sciences.Annals of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Depression predictions from GPS-based mobility do not generalize well to large demographically heterogeneous samples.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Sample size requirements for detecting treatment effect heterogeneity in cluster randomized trials.Statistics in medicine · 2020Article
- Article
- Improving the reporting quality of intervention trials addressing the inter-individual variability in response to the consumption of plant bioactives: quality index and recommendations.European journal of nutrition · 2019Review
- Social Relationships and Salivary Telomere Length Among Middle-Aged and Older African American and White Adults.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2019Article
- An approach to addressing subpopulation considerations in systematic reviews: the experience of reviewers supporting the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.Systematic reviews · 2017Article
- Personalizing Behavioral Interventions Through Single-Patient (N-of-1) Trials.Social and personality psychology compass · 2014Article
- A comprehensive review of nongenetic prognostic and predictive factors influencing the heterogeneity of outcomes in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer.Cancer management and research · 2014Review
- A framework for the analysis of heterogeneity of treatment effect in patient-centered outcomes research.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2013Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo determine whether investigations of heterogeneity of treatment effects (HTE) in randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) are prespecified and whether authors' interpretations of their analyses are consistent with the objective evidence. DATA SOURCES/STUDY
settingTrials published in Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine in 1994, 1999, and 2004. STUDY
designWe reviewed 87 RCTs that reported formal tests for statistical interaction or heterogeneity (HTE analyses), derived from a probability sample of 541 articles. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION: We recorded reasons for performing HTE analysis; an objective classification of evidence for HTE (termed "clinicostatistical divergence" [CSD]); and authors' interpretations of findings. Authors' interpretations, compared with CSD, were coded as understated, overstated, or adequately stated. PRINCIPLE
findingsFifty-three RCTs (61 percent) claimed prespecified covariates for HTE analyses. Trials showed strong (6), moderate (11), weak (25), or negligible (16) evidence for CSD (29 could not be classified due to inadequate information). Authors stated that evidence for HTE was sufficient to support differential treatment in subgroups (10); warranted more research (31); was absent (21); or provided no interpretation (25). HTE was overstated in 22 trials, adequately stated in 57 trials, and understated in 8 trials.
conclusionsInconsistencies in performance and reporting may limit the potential of HTE analysis as a tool for identifying HTE and individualizing care in diverse populations. Recommendations for future studies on the reporting and interpretation of HTE analyses are provided.
Indexed as
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What 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.