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A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression

The Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis, that was also independently proposed by Sidik and Jonkman, is becoming advocated for general use. This method has previously been justified by taking all estimated variances as known and using a different pivotal quantity to the more convent...

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Autores principales: van Aert, Robbie C. M., Jackson, Dan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6973024/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31111673
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1356
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author van Aert, Robbie C. M.
Jackson, Dan
author_facet van Aert, Robbie C. M.
Jackson, Dan
author_sort van Aert, Robbie C. M.
collection PubMed
description The Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis, that was also independently proposed by Sidik and Jonkman, is becoming advocated for general use. This method has previously been justified by taking all estimated variances as known and using a different pivotal quantity to the more conventional one when making inferences about the average effect. We provide a new conceptual framework for, and justification of, the Hartung‐Knapp method. Specifically, we show that inferences from fitted random‐effects models, using both the conventional and the Hartung‐Knapp method, are equivalent to those from closely related intercept only weighted least squares regression models. This observation provides a new link between Hartung and Knapp's methodology for meta‐analysis and standard linear models, where it can be seen that the Hartung‐Knapp method can be justified by a linear model that makes a slightly weaker assumption than taking all variances as known. This provides intuition for why the Hartung‐Knapp method has been found to perform better than the conventional one in simulation studies. Furthermore, our new findings give more credence to ad hoc adjustments of confidence intervals from the Hartung‐Knapp method that ensure these are at least as wide as more conventional confidence intervals. The conceptual basis for the Hartung‐Knapp method that we present here should replace the established one because it more clearly illustrates the potential benefit of using it.
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spelling pubmed-69730242020-01-27 A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression van Aert, Robbie C. M. Jackson, Dan Res Synth Methods Research Articles The Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis, that was also independently proposed by Sidik and Jonkman, is becoming advocated for general use. This method has previously been justified by taking all estimated variances as known and using a different pivotal quantity to the more conventional one when making inferences about the average effect. We provide a new conceptual framework for, and justification of, the Hartung‐Knapp method. Specifically, we show that inferences from fitted random‐effects models, using both the conventional and the Hartung‐Knapp method, are equivalent to those from closely related intercept only weighted least squares regression models. This observation provides a new link between Hartung and Knapp's methodology for meta‐analysis and standard linear models, where it can be seen that the Hartung‐Knapp method can be justified by a linear model that makes a slightly weaker assumption than taking all variances as known. This provides intuition for why the Hartung‐Knapp method has been found to perform better than the conventional one in simulation studies. Furthermore, our new findings give more credence to ad hoc adjustments of confidence intervals from the Hartung‐Knapp method that ensure these are at least as wide as more conventional confidence intervals. The conceptual basis for the Hartung‐Knapp method that we present here should replace the established one because it more clearly illustrates the potential benefit of using it. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-08-14 2019-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6973024/ /pubmed/31111673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1356 Text en © 2019 The Authors Research Synthesis Methods Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
van Aert, Robbie C. M.
Jackson, Dan
A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression
title A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression
title_full A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression
title_fullStr A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression
title_full_unstemmed A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression
title_short A new justification of the Hartung‐Knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression
title_sort new justification of the hartung‐knapp method for random‐effects meta‐analysis based on weighted least squares regression
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6973024/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31111673
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1356
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