[R-meta] Question about function reporter()

[Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (NP)]

As for your actual question: That's a bit too broad. Essentially, you need to familiarize yourself with what people typically report for standard RE models (as reporter() does), then familiarize yourself with what people report meta-regression models (since you have a meta-regression model), and then consider how the random effects structure of your model differs from a standard RE model and how this might affect what to report. I am not aware of any papers that will walk you through all of that. People typically learn reporting practices from what other people have done, so reading lots of existing meta-analyses will give you a sense of how this is done.

This aside, I am not sure what you hope to accomplish by adding a random effect for whether the outcome is positive or negative. Also, your model does not capture any heterogeneity beyond this, so it isn't really a random-effects model (or something akin to it).

Best,
Wolfgang

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Gabriel Cotlier [mailto:gabiklm01 using gmail.com]
>Sent: Friday, 16 June, 2023 9:08
>To: Yefeng Yang
>Cc: R Special Interest Group for Meta-Analysis; Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (NP)
>Subject: Re: [R-meta] Question about function reporter()
>
>Hello,
>
>Wolfgang : very helpful and nourishing knowledge and guidance about the
>function rma.mv() potential and complexity, thanks a lot for the explanation!
>Yes indeed, maybe in the "longue durée" --or not so much-- future time we will be
>more worried about bigger threats AI technology can pose to us ...
>
>Anyway, It become an interesting participative discussion afterwards.
>
>Maybe, I should apologize due to the lack of specificity or rugurosity in my
>question, since I was only thinking --but did not write it--in my particular
>case, mainly of an rma.rm() function with the simplest the possible "random"
>arguments rather than the more the complex nested random effect models, such as
>for instance:
>
>data_1 <- rma.mv(yi = yi,
>                     V = vi,
>                     mods = ~Type - 1,
>                     random = ~1 | alloc,
>                     data = dat)
>
>where the "alloc" variable refers just whether the correlation ( yi ) has either
>positive or negative sign (numerical variable  taking either -1 or 1) and "Type"
>is a just categorical variable (of char class) composed of 3 clases Types namly
>"R", "E", and "CS".
>
>Maybe there is instead of a reporter() function output results some bibliography
>that can lead me to a nice manner in which I can report the results of my simple
>application of rma.mv() function output as an example to support the bases of the
>writing of my report.
>
>Thanks a lot.
>Kind regards,
>Gabriel
>
>On Thu, Jun 15, 2023 at 12:05 PM Yefeng Yang <yefeng.yang1 using unsw.edu.au> wrote:
>Actually, I have a different opinion about reporter() function. Just for an open
>discussion and no offensive. Instead of automatically generating an analysis
>report based on the fitted model (via rma()), it is probably more useful to have
>a helper function to automatically generate a "publication-ready" table that
>shows the quantities recommended by various PRISMA-related reporting guidelines,
>such as the name of the moderator, tau, I2, point estimate, CIs, k, t, p, et al.
>The analysis report is something that should be (and must be at some point) done
>by the analysts themselves and they are responsible for the proper
>interpretation.
>
>Regards,
>Yefeng
>
>________________________________________
>From: R-sig-meta-analysis <r-sig-meta-analysis-bounces using r-project.org> on behalf
>of Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (NP) via R-sig-meta-analysis <r-sig-meta-analysis using r-
>project.org>
>Sent: Thursday, 15 June 2023 18:38
>To: R Special Interest Group for Meta-Analysis <r-sig-meta-analysis using r-
>project.org>
>Cc: Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (NP) <wolfgang.viechtbauer using maastrichtuniversity.nl>;
>Gabriel Cotlier <gabiklm01 using gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [R-meta] Question about function reporter()
>
>Dear Gabriel,
>
>You can't, since reporter() doesn't currently work for 'rma.mv' objects.
>
>Models that can be fitted with rma() (same as rma.uni()) are relatively simple
>and the number of possibilities that need to be covered for translating the
>results from such a model into text are managable. Although even here, there are
>currently restrictions. For example, reporter() currently only works for
>'intercept-only models' (i.e., models without moderators), it doesn't work when
>robust() was used on the model, and it doesn't work for location-scale models.
>Allowing reporter() to work with meta-regression models is on my radar, but not
>sure when I will get to this.
>
>Models that can be fitted with rma.mv() are an entirely different beast. This
>function allows users to fit multilevel models (with essentially no limits on the
>number of levels), multivariate models (with multiple correlated random effects),
>network meta-analyses, phylogenetic meta-analyses, spatio-temporal models, models
>with random slopes, models with crossed random effects, and combinations thereof
>(e.g., multivariate network meta-analysis). Such models will also typically
>involve one or multiple moderators (e.g., to distinguish different outcomes,
>treatments, time points, etc.). Depending on the type of model, different aspects
>of the results are also more or less relevant (e.g., in a phylogenetic MA, there
>would be a lot of focus on the random effects for species, while in a network MA,
>focus would be more on contrasting the different treatments with each other).
>There is essentially no way in hell that one could write reporter()-like
>functionality for 'rma.mv' type models that covers all these
>aspects/possibilities in a sensible way.
>
>Of course, one could consider writing a version that only covers a few special
>cases; for example, models of the form rma.mv(yi, V, random = ~ 1 |
>level1/level2/level3/...) or rma.mv(yi, V, random = ~ var1 | var2) although the
>latter type of model would often be used when var1 corresponds to different
>outcomes in which case the model would probably involve moderators and be of the
>form rma.mv(yi, V, mods = ~ outcome, random = ~ outcome | study), but in the end,
>the reporter() function cannot read the users mind as to what the goal and focus
>of their analysis was.
>
>Alternatively, one could generate very generic text that does cover many
>possibilities, but this would add essentially nothing to just reading the output
>directly.
>
>Maybe if we wait another 20-30 years, ChatGPT (or Skynet or whatever it will be
>called then) will be able to do something like this automatically. However, we
>might be too busy fighting off the Terminators at that point to worry about
>rma.mv() models ...
>
>Best,
>Wolfgang
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: R-sig-meta-analysis [mailto:r-sig-meta-analysis-bounces using r-project.org] On
>>Behalf Of Gabriel Cotlier via R-sig-meta-analysis
>>Sent: Thursday, 15 June, 2023 6:37
>>To: R Special Interest Group for Meta-Analysis
>>Cc: Gabriel Cotlier
>>Subject: [R-meta] Question about function reporter()
>>
>>Hello all,
>>
>>I am using an object of class "rma.mv" "rma" as :
>>
>>class(data)
>>[1] "rma.mv" "rma"
>>
>>and would like to use the function reporter().
>>How could this possibly be done either directly in metafor in R or maybe in
>>JAMOVI or in other software where the metafor package is included?
>>
>>Thanks a lot.
>>Kind regards,
>>Gabriel