Bmc Med Res Methodol
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Mar 2018
Dealing with missing standard deviation and mean values in meta-analysis of continuous outcomes: a systematic review.
Rigorous, informative meta-analyses rely on availability of appropriate summary statistics or individual participant data. For continuous outcomes, especially those with naturally skewed distributions, summary information on the mean or variability often goes unreported. While full reporting of original trial data is the ideal, we sought to identify methods for handling unreported mean or variability summary statistics in meta-analysis. ⋯ Methods based on summary statistics (minimum, maximum, lower quartile, upper quartile, median) reported in the literature facilitate more comprehensive inclusion of randomised controlled trials with missing mean or variability summary statistics within meta-analyses.