Statistical analysis of individual participant data meta-analyses: a comparison of methods and recommendations for practice.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses that obtain "raw" data from studies rather than summary data typically adopt a "two-stage" approach to analysis whereby IPD within trials generate summary measures, which are combined using standard meta-analytical methods. Recently, a range of "one-stage" approaches which combine all individual participant data in a single meta-analysis have been suggested as providing a more powerful and flexible approach. However, they are more complex to implement and require statistical support. This study uses a dataset to compare "two-stage" and "one-stage" models of varying complexity, to ascertain whether results obtained from the approaches differ in a clinically meaningful way.

Methods and findings

We included data from 24

SUBMITTER: Stewart GB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3463584 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature