Inconsistency between direct and indirect comparisons of competing interventions: meta-epidemiological study.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To investigate the agreement between direct and indirect comparisons of competing healthcare interventions.

Design

Meta-epidemiological study based on sample of meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials. Data sources Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and PubMed. Inclusion criteria Systematic reviews that provided sufficient data for both direct comparison and independent indirect comparisons of two interventions on the basis of a common comparator and in which the odds ratio could be used as the outcome statistic.

Main outcome measure

Inconsistency measured by the difference in the log odds ratio between the direct and indirect methods.

Results

The study included 112 independent trial networks (including 1552 trials with 478,775 patients in

SUBMITTER: Song F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3156578 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature