Estimating publication bias in meta-analyses of peer-reviewed studies: A meta-meta-analysis across disciplines and journal tiers.

ABSTRACT: Selective publication and reporting in individual papers compromise the scientific record, but are meta-analyses as compromised as their constituent studies? We systematically sampled 63 meta-analyses (each comprising at least 40 studies) in PLoS One, top medical journals, top psychology journals, and Metalab, an online, open-data database of developmental psychology meta-analyses. We empirically estimated publication bias in each, including only the peer-reviewed studies. Across all meta-analyses, we estimated that "statistically significant" results in the expected direction were only 1.17 times more likely to be published than "nonsignificant" results or those in the unexpected direction (95% CI: [0.93, 1.47]), with a confidence interval substantially overlapping the null. Comparable es

SUBMITTER: Mathur MB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7954980 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature