Journal of general internal medicine
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Meta Analysis
Prior Choices of Between-Study Heterogeneity in Contemporary Bayesian Network Meta-analyses: an Empirical Study.
Network meta-analysis (NMA) is a popular tool to compare multiple treatments in medical research. It is frequently implemented via Bayesian methods. The prior choice of between-study heterogeneity is critical in Bayesian NMAs. This study evaluates the impact of different priors for heterogeneity on NMA results. ⋯ Priors should be routinely reported in Bayesian NMAs. Sensitivity analyses are recommended to examine the impact of priors, especially for NMAs with relatively small sample sizes. Informative priors may produce substantially narrower credible intervals for such NMAs.