Table 2 The 24 graph-functionality features used to describe the 208 retrieved graphical displays for meta-analysis
Functionality features of meta-analytic plots | |
|---|---|
01 - Displays summary outcome point estimate | |
02 - Displays summary outcome interval estimate | |
03 - Displays heterogeneity summary estimates (e.g., I2, Q; also, inconsistency in network meta-analysis) | |
04 - Displays individual study effect-size point estimates | |
05 - Displays individual study effect interval estimate | |
06 - Displays individual study meta-analytic weight/precision/N (including contribution of comparisons in network meta-analysis) | |
07 - Displays individual study names or identifiers | |
08 - Displays more than one outcome per study | |
09 - Displays individual study significance dichotomously (i.e., significant vs. not) | |
10 - Displays individual study significance continuously (i.e., allows to assess how close a study p value was to statistical significance thresholds) | |
11 - Informs about the likelihood, or posterior distribution, of meta-analytic parameter values | |
12 - Suitable to display association of effect sizes with categorical study features | |
13 - Suitable to display association of effect sizes with continuous study features | |
14 - Suitable to display individual study or study-group features (additionally or exclusively) | |
15 - Suitable and informative for small-sized meta-analyses (10 studies or less) | |
16 - Suitable and informative for medium-sized meta-analyses (say, about 50 studies) | |
17 - Suitable and informative for large-sized meta-analyses (say, hundreds of studies) | |
18 - Suitable to assess small-study effects/publication bias and other forms of biases | |
19 - Suitable to assess the temporal development of meta-analytic estimates | |
20 - Suitable to assess an excess of between-study (or study-group) effect heterogeneity (also, inconsistencies in network meta-analysis) | |
21 - Suitable to assess assumptions about the distribution of estimates (e.g., normality of effects) | |
22 - Suitable to assess the robustness of summary effect(s) | |
23 - Suitable to assess the robustness of heterogeneity statistics (e.g., I2, Ï„2, Q) | |
24 - Suitable to identify influential studies (i.e., outliers, leverage points) |