[R-meta] Forest Plot

Gerta Ruecker ruecker @ending from imbi@uni-freiburg@de
Thu Oct 11 11:51:45 CEST 2018


Dear Christine,

Yes, this makes sense. For the technical point, you may split the forest 
plot into plots of groups of studies (without any further meaning, 
simply alphabetically), just to have all studies shown in a readable way 
on four or five pages in your thesis or paper, such as splitting a long 
table into pages.

Best,

Gerta


Am 11.10.2018 um 11:45 schrieb Christine Emmer:
> Dear Wolfgang, and dear Gerta,
>
> Thank you very much for your quick reply. I was using a three-level approach to account for dependencies of effect sizes from the same study. I still have to think about interpretation and what the distribution of heterogeneity means for my results (around 50% on sample level, and 50% on study level).
> Does this make sense for you?
>
> Best, Christine
>
>> Am 11.10.2018 um 11:34 schrieb Gerta Ruecker <ruecker using imbi.uni-freiburg.de>:
>>
>> Dear Christine,
>>
>> With over 300 effect sizes, I think this is somewhat unavoidable ;-) With 800% enlargement you see the details.
>>
>> Beyond the technical problem, another point is: Many effect sizes come from the same study and they do by no means seem to be independent. Rather, there are blocks defined by studies. You should think how to interpret this (what do different effect sizes from the same study mean?), and whether it really makes sense to put all these into the same meta-analysis (that assumes independent effect sizes) and even to show a pooled estimate.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Gerta
>>
>>
>> Am 11.10.2018 um 11:28 schrieb Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP):
>>> Hi Christine,
>>>
>>> Increase the height of the plotting device (argument height in function pdf() -- see help(pdf)). And then play around with the settings for 'cex' and possibly 'xlim' in forest(). If you run the forest() command like this:
>>>
>>> sav <- forest(...)
>>> sav
>>>
>>> then you can see what the defaults are. The default settings may not be appropriate for forest plots witht this many effects.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Wolfgang
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: R-sig-meta-analysis [mailto:r-sig-meta-analysis-bounces using r-project.org] On Behalf Of Christine Emmer
>>> Sent: Thursday, 11 October, 2018 11:00
>>> To: r-sig-meta-analysis using r-project.org
>>> Subject: [R-meta] Forest Plot
>>>
>>> ATTACHMENT(S) REMOVED: forest0.pdf
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I am currently working on my master’s thesis, a meta-analysis in social science. I included over 300 effect sizes, which I want to display by a forest plot.
>>> Unfortunately, the plot is because of the high number of effect sizes not clearly arranged (see attached picture).
>>> Maybe there is a simple solution?
>>>
>>> Many thanks and best regards, Christine
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> R-sig-meta-analysis mailing list
>>> R-sig-meta-analysis using r-project.org
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-meta-analysis
>> -- 
>>
>> Dr. rer. nat. Gerta Rücker, Dipl.-Math.
>>
>> Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics,
>> Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center - University of Freiburg
>>
>> Stefan-Meier-Str. 26, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany
>>
>> Phone:    +49/761/203-6673
>> Fax:      +49/761/203-6680
>> Mail:     ruecker using imbi.uni-freiburg.de
>> Homepage: https://portal.uni-freiburg.de/imbi/persons/ruecker?set_language=en
>>

-- 

Dr. rer. nat. Gerta Rücker, Dipl.-Math.

Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics,
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center - University of Freiburg

Stefan-Meier-Str. 26, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany

Phone:    +49/761/203-6673
Fax:      +49/761/203-6680
Mail:     ruecker using imbi.uni-freiburg.de
Homepage: https://portal.uni-freiburg.de/imbi/persons/ruecker?set_language=en



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