How to teach the fundamentals of meta-analyses

Conducting meta-analyses is an exciting and rewarding way of summarizing and quantifying the current knowledge, which is also becoming increasingly important in clinical research. There are many articles published on interpreting meta-analysis and specific statistical methods, which makes it challenging to obtain an overview, also for teachers and supervisors. The aim of this article is to provide a guide for teaching the fundamentals of meta-analysis, with as goal to improve the quality of published meta-analyses.

This article provides tips and key references on how to conduct meta-analyses, based on own research, supervising and teaching experience, mainly working with junior clinical researchers.

This article contains up-to-date guidelines, practical examples and recommendations to improve the identification and selection of relevant articles, data-extraction, quality assessment, statistical analyses and presentation and publication of results. Time-saving tips and commonly encountered problems such as heterogeneity and publication bias are also discussed. This article is based on recommendations from world renowned organizations and authors, and covers practical examples and pitfalls.

Although conducting meta-analysis may seem complex and difficult, it is also achievable for junior researchers and clinicians. Expert guidance is however recommended to achieve high-quality research.