[R-meta] error for meta-regression with continuous moderator

[david detullio]

Hello all, I am performing a mixed-effects meta-regression of proportions
with a continuous moderator. I receive the error message: "Ratio of largest
to smallest sampling variance extremely large. May not be able to obtain
stable results."

I saw a post asking about this error, but the post appeared to be referring
to subgroups, as opposed to a continuous moderator. So, is it common for
this to happen with a continuous moderator, especially if there are some
values for the continuous moderator which consist of only a single study?

I have provided the data and code below to produce the results I found. Any
help would be appreciated.


event<-c(28,50,59,29,32,100,36,29,9,50,54,43,49,24)
total<-c(55,60,65,43,41,107,40,34,10,58,54,50,60,28)
moderator<-c(5,5,1,11,9,9,5,9,12,2,3,7,5,9)
data<-data.frame(event,total,moderator)
meta<-metaprop(event=data$event, n = data$total, sm = "PLOGIT", backtransf
= TRUE, byvar = data$moderator)
reg<-metareg(x = meta, ~data$moderator)
print(reg)

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