Evaluating the properties of the fragility index of meta-analyses.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The fragility index (FI) has become an increasingly popular supplementary measure for evaluating the robustness of a study's conclusions. While initially developed for individual clinical trials, the FI has been extended to meta-analyses (MAs) of multiple studies. However, the existing literature provides limited insights into the properties of the FI in the context of MAs. This study aims to explore various statistical methods for MAs and assess the improvement in FI of MAs compared to the individual studies they comprise.

Methods

We investigated the empirical distributions of FI and fragility quotient (FQ) using a large database of Cochrane MAs with binary outcomes. The FI of MAs was calculated under different statistical methods, including fixed-effect and rand

SUBMITTER: Xing A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12465983 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature