Meta-analysis is a well-established method for integrating results from several independent studies to estimate a common quantity of interest. However, meta-analysis is prone to selection bias, notably when particular studies are systematically excluded. This can lead to bias in estimating the quantity of interest. Motivated by a meta-analysis to estimate the rate of completed suicide after bariatric surgery, where studies which reported no suicides were excluded, a novel zero-truncated count modelling approach was developed. This approach addresses heterogeneity, both observed and unobserved, through covariate and overdispersion modelling, respectively. Additionally, through the Horvitz-Thompson estimator, an approach was developed to estimate the number of excluded studies, a quantity of potential interest for researchers. Uncertainty quantification for both estimation of suicide rates and number of excluded studies was achieved through a parametric bootstrapping approach.
翻译:翻译的摘要:
元分析是集成来自多个独立研究结果以估计感兴趣的公共数量的一种成熟方法。然而,元分析容易受到选择偏差的影响,特别是当特定研究被系统地排除时。这可能会导致估计感兴趣的数量时发生偏差。在一项元分析中,估计减重手术后自杀率时排除了未报告自杀事件的研究,因此我们开发了一种新的零截尾计数建模方法。该方法通过协变量建模和过离散化建模来解决异质性的问题,分别处理观察到的和未观察到的异质性。此外,通过Horvitz-Thompson估计器,我们开发了一种方法来估计被排除的研究数量,这是研究人员可能感兴趣的一项数量。通过参数自助法可以实现自杀率和被排除的研究数量的不确定性量化。