[R-meta] Meta-analysis - missing study-specific variance

[Angela Leanne Wilson]

Hello all,

I am conducting a meta-analysis to summarize effect sizes from different studies that ran mediation analysis.

I have extracted the standardized regression coefficients (i.e., the indirect effects from each mediation study) as the effect size. I also have the sample size for each study, however I found that only a few studies reported any error/variance estimate (probably because the authors have reported a standardized regression coefficient and thus they did not report any error/variance of the corresponding regression coefficient). In this case, it means that many studies in my meta-analysis lack study-specific variance information.

My understanding is that the study-specific variance is needed to calculate the weight for each study when calculating the average effect size across studies. May I ask if you can suggest what I need to do to estimate the study-specific variance?

(Apologies I do not have any code as I cannot begin the analysis without first resolving this issue)

Many thanks,
Angela

Angela Wilson (she, her/elle)
Doctoral Candidate, Clinical Psychology
University of Ottawa
Healthy Active Living and Obesity (HALO) Research Group
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), Research Institute
Email: awils046 using uottawa.ca