Funnel plot: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:38, 4 February 2015

Revision as of 04:09, 6 May 2015

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}}</ref>

and discussed in detail by Egger and colleagues,<ref>{{Cite journal

| author = [[Matthias Egger]], [[G. Davey Smith]], [[M. Schneider]] & [[C. Minder]]

| title = Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test

| journal = [[BMJ]]

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| doi=10.1136/bmj.315.7109.629

}}</ref><ref name="SterneJ2001Funnel">{{Cite journal

| author = [[Jonathan A. C. Sterne]] & [[Matthias Egger]]

| title = Funnel plots for detecting bias in meta-analysis: guidelines on choice of axis

| journal = [[Journal of Clinical Epidemiology]]

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The funnel plot is not without problems.

If high precision studies really are different from low precision studies with respect to [[effect size]] (e.g., due to different populations examined) a funnel plot may give a wrong impression of publication bias.<ref>{{Cite journal

| author = [[Joseph Lau]], [[John P. A. Ioannidis]], [[Norma Terrin]], [[Christopher H. Schmid]] & [[Ingram Olkin]]

| title = The case of the misleading funnel plot

| journal = [[BMJ]]

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}}</ref>

The appearance of the funnel plot can change quite dramatically depending on the scale on the y-axis &mdash; whether it is the inverse square error or the trial size.<ref>{{Cite journal

| author = [[Jin-Ling Tang]], [[& Joseph LY Liu]]

| title = Misleading funnel plot for detection of bias in meta-analysis

| journal = [[Journal of Clinical Epidemiology]]