[R-meta] contour enhanced funnel plots when using function of sample size

[Brendan Hutchinson]

Dear Guido,

Thank you very much for your prompt response and for clarifying!

In case it is of any interest for future mailing list readers, the publication by Peters et al 2008 (DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2007.11.010) details this nicely.

Brendan

________________________________
From: Guido Schwarzer <sc using imbi.uni-freiburg.de>
Sent: Tuesday, 24 May 2022 7:59 PM
To: Brendan Hutchinson <Brendan.Hutchinson using anu.edu.au>; r-sig-meta-analysis using r-project.org <r-sig-meta-analysis using r-project.org>
Subject: Re: [R-meta] contour enhanced funnel plots when using function of sample size

Am 24.05.22 um 10:46 schrieb Brendan Hutchinson:

> [...]
> My question is specifically whether there is a means of generating a contour enhanced funnel plot with pseudo confidence regions when using a function of sample size on the y axis. According to the R documentation, this isn't possible. I wanted to ask if anyone knew of any means to achieve this or perhaps a workaround (unless this is some inherent issue to the use of a function of sample size that I'm not seeing).

The sample size does not contain any information on the statistical
significance of a study result. For example, for a binary outcome:

 > meta::metabin(1, 100, 2, 100)$pval
[1] 0.5688381
 > meta::metabin(25, 100, 50, 100)$pval
[1] 0.0005287824

Both studies have a total sample size of 200, however, depending on the
number of events, the studies have very different p-values.

The same argument can be made for a continuous outcome, studies with the
same sample sizes and mean values can have very different standard
deviations leading to different p-values.

Best,

Guido

--
Dr. Guido Schwarzer
Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics,
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center - University of Freiburg

Postal address: Zinkmattenstr. 6a, D-79108 Freiburg

Mail: sc using imbi.uni-freiburg.de
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