Journal
STATISTICAL METHODS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH
Volume 29, Issue 9, Pages 2520-2537Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/0962280219889080
Keywords
Meta-analysis; median; first quartile; third quartile; minimum value; maximum value
Categories
Funding
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [KRS-134297]
- Fonds de recherche du Quebec -Sante (FRQS)
- CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship doctoral award
- CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship master's awards
- FRQS Masters Training Awards
- Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship
- FRQS Postdoctoral Training Fellowship
- Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
- G.R. Caverhill Fellowship from the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University
- Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
- Alberta Health Services through the Calgary Health Trust
- Hotchkiss Brain Institute
- Senior Health Scholar award from Alberta Innovates Health Solutions
- Health Research Council of New Zealand
- Lundbeck International
- Tehran University of Medical Sciences [M-288]
- Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems: University of Washington [H133N060033]
- Baylor College of Medicine [H133N060003]
- University of Michigan [H133N060032]
- National Health and Medical Research Council [1002160]
- Safe Work Australia
- Australian Research Council [FT130101444]
- European Foundation for Study of Diabetes
- Chinese Diabetes Society
- Lilly Foundation
- Asia Diabetes Foundation
- Liao Wun Yuk Diabetes Memorial Fund
- United States National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant [5F30MH096664]
- United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of the Director
- Fogarty International Center
- Office of AIDS Research
- National Cancer Center
- National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute
- NIH Office of Research for Women's Health through the Fogarty Global Health Fellows Program Consortium [1R25TW00934001]
- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
- NIMH [R24MH071604, R34 MH072925, K02 MH65919, P30 DK50456, R24 MH56858, RO1 MH073687, RO1-MH069666, R34MH084673, R24 MH071604]
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [R49 CE002093]
- St Anne's Community Services, Leeds, UK
- US National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research [RO1 HD39415]
- German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [01GY1150]
- NIH [T37 MD001449, T32 GM07356]
- Ohio Board of Regents
- Research and Development Administration Office, University of Macau [MYRG2015-00109-FSS]
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research [01 GD 9802/4, 01 GD 0101]
- Federation of German Pension Insurance Institute
- German Ministry of Research and Education
- Perpetual Trustees
- Flora and Frank Leith Charitable Trust
- Jack Brockhoff Foundation
- Grosvenor Settlement
- Sunshine Foundation
- Danks Trust
- CIHR [FRN 83518]
- Scleroderma Society of Canada
- Scleroderma Society of Ontario
- Scleroderma Society of Saskatchewan
- Sclerodermie Quebec
- Cure Scleroderma Foundation
- Inova Diagnostics Inc
- Euroimmun
- FRQS
- Canadian Arthritis Network
- Lady Davis Institute of Medical Research of the Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC
- FRQS Senior Investigator Award
- National Strategic Reference Framework
- European Union
- Greek Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs (ARISTEIA-ABREVIATE) [1259]
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan
- UK National Institute for Health Research under its Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme [RP-PG-0606-1142]
- Canada Research Chair in Neurological Health Services Research
- AIHS Population Health Investigator Award
- Australian National Health and Medical Research Council fellowship [1088313]
- Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development [945-03-047]
- National Health Research Institute, Republic of China [NHRI-EX97-9706PI]
- Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand [49086]
- Reitoria de Pesquisa da Universidade de Sao Paulo [09.1.01689.17.7]
- Banco Santander [10.1.01232.17.9]
- Pfizer, Germany
- medical faculty of the University of Heidelberg, Germany [121/2000]
- Research University Grant Scheme from Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
- Postgraduate Research Student Support Accounts of the University of Auckland, New Zealand
- National Program for Centers of Excellence (PRONEX/FAPERGS/CNPq, Brazil)
- Pfizer US Pharmaceutical Inc.
- PQ-CNPq-2 [301321/2016-7]
- Belgian Ministry of Public Health and Social Affairs
- Pfizer Belgium
- Italian Ministry of Health
- UK National Health Service Lothian Neuro-Oncology Endowment Fund
- Universiti Sains Malaysia
- United States Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration [R40MC07840]
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [R36 HS018246]
- National Center for Research Resources [TL1 RR024135]
- University of Melbourne
- Hunter Medical Research Institute
- Innovatiefonds Zorgverzekeraars
- Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) Mental Health Program [100.003.005, 100.002.021]
- Academic Medical Center/University of Amsterdam
- Fund for Innovation and Competitiveness of the Chilean Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism, through the Millennium Scientific Initiative [IS130005]
- Department of Veterans Epidemiology Merit Review Program
- Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development service
- National Heart Lung and Blood Institute [R01 HL079235]
- American Federation for Ageing Research
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Ischemia Research and Education Foundation
- National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia [1088313] Funding Source: NHMRC
- Australian Research Council [FT130101444] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Researchers increasingly use meta-analysis to synthesize the results of several studies in order to estimate a common effect. When the outcome variable is continuous, standard meta-analytic approaches assume that the primary studies report the sample mean and standard deviation of the outcome. However, when the outcome is skewed, authors sometimes summarize the data by reporting the sample median and one or both of (i) the minimum and maximum values and (ii) the first and third quartiles, but do not report the mean or standard deviation. To include these studies in meta-analysis, several methods have been developed to estimate the sample mean and standard deviation from the reported summary data. A major limitation of these widely used methods is that they assume that the outcome distribution is normal, which is unlikely to be tenable for studies reporting medians. We propose two novel approaches to estimate the sample mean and standard deviation when data are suspected to be non-normal. Our simulation results and empirical assessments show that the proposed methods often perform better than the existing methods when applied to non-normal data.
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