Research Synthesis Methods

Article	Citations
Meta‐analysis of prevalence: I2 statistic and how to deal with heterogeneity	198
Citationchaser: A tool for transparent and efficient forward and backward citation chasing in systematic searching	151
Investigating and dealing with publication bias and other reporting biases in meta‐analyses of health research: A review	132
Introduction to PRISMA 2020 and implications for research synthesis methodologists	109
Using artificial intelligence methods for systematic review in health sciences: A systematic review	73
Graphical Representation of Overlap for OVErviews: GROOVE tool	71
On weakly informative prior distributions for the heterogeneity parameter in Bayesian random‐effects meta‐analysis	68
Improving the reporting quality of reliability generalization meta‐analyses: The REGEMA checklist	58
Applying and reporting relevance, richness and rigour in realist evidence appraisals: Advancing key concepts in realist reviews	57
Meta‐analytic structural equation modeling made easy: A tutorial and web application for one‐stageMASEM	44
Detecting publication selection bias through excess statistical significance	40
Identifying and managing problematic trials: A research integrity assessment tool for randomized controlled trials in evidence synthesis	39
Estimating publication bias in meta‐analyses of peer‐reviewed studies: A meta‐meta‐analysis across disciplines and journal tiers	38
Robust Bayesian meta‐analysis: Model‐averaging across complementary publication bias adjustment methods	33
Methods for population adjustment with limited access to individual patient data: A review and simulation study	30
Citation tracking for systematic literature searching: A scoping review	25
Can large language models replace humans in systematic reviews? Evaluating GPT‐4's efficacy in screening and extracting data from peer‐reviewed and grey literature in multiple languages	25
The application of AMSTAR2 in 32 overviews of systematic reviews of interventions for mental and behavioural disorders: A cross‐sectional study	25
Using information‐theoretic approaches for model selection in meta‐analysis	23
ccaR: A package for assessing primary study overlap across systematic reviews in overviews	22
Data sharing—trialists' plans at registration, attitudes, barriers and facilitators: A cohort study and cross‐sectional survey	22
Parametric G‐computation for compatible indirect treatment comparisons with limited individual patient data	18
Including non‐English language articles in systematic reviews: A reflection on processes for identifying low‐cost sources of translation support	18
The ScHARR LMIC filter: Adapting a low‐ and middle‐income countries geographic search filter to identify studies on preterm birth prevention and management	17
Synthesis of evidence from zero‐events studies: A comparison of one‐stage framework methods	17

Twenty years of network meta‐analysis: Continuing controversies and recent developments	17
In‐depth evaluation of machine learning methods for semi‐automating article screening in a systematic review of mechanistic literature	17
Evaluation of the comprehensiveness, accuracy and currency of the Cochrane COVID‐19 Study Register for supporting rapid evidence synthesis production	17
Methodological guidance for rapid reviews in healthcare: A scoping review	17
What you see depends on where you sit: The effect of geographical location on web‐searching for systematic reviews: A case study	17
Extracting data from graphs: A case‐study on animal research with implications for meta‐analyses	16
Applying machine classifiers to update searches: Analysis from two case studies	16
A critical reflection on computing the sampling variance of the partial correlation coefficient	15
Avoiding common mistakes in meta‐analysis: Understanding the distinct roles of Q, I‐squared, tau‐squared, and the prediction interval in reporting heterogeneity	15
Alternative weighting schemes when performing matching‐adjusted indirect comparisons	15
Bibliometric study of ‘overviews of systematic reviews’ of health interventions: Evaluation of prevalence, citation and journal impact factor	15
The age of abundant scholarly information and its synthesis– A time when ‘just google it’ is no longer enough	15
Using Monte Carlo experiments to select meta‐analytic estimators	14
Cluster wild bootstrapping to handle dependent effect sizes in meta‐analysis with a small number of studies	14
Rapid evidence synthesis approach for limits on the search date: How rapid could it be?	13
Machine learning in systematic reviews: Comparing automated text clustering with Lingo3G and human researcher categorization in a rapid review	13
A new taxonomy was developed for overlap across 'overviews of systematic reviews': A meta‐research study of research waste	12
Retrospective median power, false positive meta‐analysis and large‐scale replication	12
Cumulative meta‐analysis: What works	11
An evidence‐splitting approach to evaluation of direct‐indirect evidence inconsistency in network meta‐analysis	11
Two‐stage or not two‐stage? That is the question for IPD meta‐analysis projects	11
Paperfetcher: A tool to automate handsearching and citation searching for systematic reviews	11
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Footprint of publication selection bias on meta‐analyses in medicine, environmental sciences, psychology, and economics	10
Double arcsine transform not appropriate for meta‐analysis	10
How should we handle predatory journals in evidence synthesis? A descriptive survey‐based cross‐sectional study of evidence synthesis experts	10
Reverse‐Bayes methods for evidence assessment and research synthesis	10
Meta‐analyzing individual participant data from studies with complex survey designs: A tutorial on using the two‐stage approach for data from educational large‐scale a	10
Location‐scale models for meta‐analysis	10
Reevaluation of statistically significant meta‐analyses in advanced cancer patients using the Hartung–Knapp method and prediction intervals—A methodological study	10
Study specific prediction intervals for random‐effects meta‐analysis: A tutorial	10
CLUSTER searching approach to inform evidence syntheses: A methodological review	10
Synthesizing cross‐design evidence and cross‐format data using network meta‐regression	10
Enhanced access to recommendations from the Cochrane Handbook for improving authors' judgments about risk of bias: A randomized controlled trial	9
Interval estimation of the overall treatment effect in random‐effects meta‐analyses: Recommendations from a simulation study comparing frequentist, Bayesian, and bootstrap methods	9
Comparison and validation of metadta for meta‐analysis of diagnostic test accuracy studies	9
Examining how meta‐analytic methods perform in the presence of bias: A simulation study	9
Risk of bias assessment in preclinical literature using natural language processing	9
Systematic review of the methodological literature for integrating qualitative evidence syntheses into health guideline development	9
Data extraction for evidence synthesis using a large language model: A proof‐of‐concept study	9
Comparing methods for handling missing covariates in meta‐regression	9
A search of only four key databases would identify most randomized controlled trials of acupuncture: A meta‐epidemiological study	8
Identifying evidence for five realist reviews in primary health care: A comparison of search methods	8
The confounder matrix: A tool to assess confounding bias in systematic reviews of observational studies of etiology	8
Efficient searching for NICE public health guidelines: Would using fewer sources still find the evidence?	8
Bayesian meta‐analysis usingSAS PROC BGLIMM	8
Machine learning for identifying relevant publications in updates of systematic reviews of diagnostic test studies	8
When is the evidence conclusive? Analysis of systematic reviews for which Cochrane declared that conclusions will not change with further studies	7
A Q statistic with constant weights for assessing heterogeneity in meta‐analysis	7
Methods for using Bing's AI‐powered search engine for data extraction for a systematic review	7

metamedian: An R package for meta‐analyzing studies reporting medians	7
Graphical tools for visualizing the results of network meta‐analysis of multicomponent interventions	7
Correct standard errors can bias meta‐analysis	7
Making the case for librarian expertise to support evidence synthesis for the sustainable development goals	7
Quantifying the robustness of primary analysis results: A case study on missing outcome data in pairwise and network meta‐analysis	7
Estimating interactions and subgroup‐specific treatment effects in meta‐analysis without aggregation bias: A within‐trial framework	7
Meta‐analyzing partial correlation coefficients using Fisher's z transformation	7
Improving the precision of search strategies for guideline surveillance	6
Advice for improving the reproducibility of data extraction in meta‐analysis	6
Predicting personalised absolute treatment effects in individual participant data meta‐analysis: An introduction to splines	6
Improved methods to construct prediction intervals for network meta‐analysis	6
Beyond Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science: An evaluation of the backward and forward citation coverage of 59 databases' citation indices	6
Additional considerations and response to ‘graphical representation of overlap for OVErviews (GROOVE tool)’	6
Investigation of text‐mining methodologies to aid the construction of search strategies in systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy—a case study	6
Lessons learnt: Undertaking rapid reviews on public health and social measures during a global pandemic	6
Why do researchers co‐author evidence syntheses with librarians? A mixed‐methods study	6
Reporting of Cochrane systematic review protocols with network meta‐analyses—A scoping review	6
A cautionary note on the use of G‐computation in population adjustment	6
Critical appraisal in ecology: What tools are available, and what is being used in systematic reviews?	6
Using systems perspectives in evidence synthesis: A methodological mapping review	5
On ratio measures of heterogeneity for meta‐analyses	5
Network meta‐interpolation: Effect modification adjustment in network meta‐analysis using subgroup analyses	5
Case study meta‐analysis in the social sciences. Insights on data quality and reliability from a large‐N case survey	5
A technical review of three clinical trials register resources indicates where improvements to the search interfaces are needed	5
Identifying unreported links between ClinicalTrials.gov trial registrations and their published results	5
Meta‐regression methods to characterize evidence strength using meaningful‐effect percentages conditional on study characteristics	5
MA‐cont:pre/post effect size: An interactive tool for the meta‐analysis of continuous outcomes using R Shiny	5
What are the best methods for rapid reviews of the research evidence? A systematic review of reviews and primary studies	5
Kenward‐Roger–type corrections for inference methods of network meta‐analysis and meta‐regression	5
A comparison of hypothesis tests for homogeneity in meta‐analysis with focus on rare binary events	5
Training sample selection: Impact on screening automation in diagnostic test accuracy reviews	5
Exact inference for fixed‐effects meta‐analysis of proportions	5
Impact of searching clinical trials registers in systematic reviews of pharmaceutical and non‐pharmaceutical interventions: Reanalysis of meta‐analyses	5
Combining estimators in interlaboratory studies and meta‐analyses	5
Effect estimates can be accurately calculated with data digitally extracted from interrupted time series graphs	4
PsychOpen CAMA: Publication of community‐augmented meta‐analyses in psychology	4
Using clinical trial registries to inform Copas selection model for publication bias in meta‐analysis	4
How to observe the principle of concurrent control in an arm‐based meta‐analysis using SAS procedures GLIMMIX and BGLIMM	4
Limits in the search date for rapid reviews of diagnostic test accuracy studies	4
Advancing the methodology of mapping reviews: A scoping review	4
Causal assessment in evidence synthesis: A methodological review of reviews	4
Retrieving Cochrane reviews is sometimes challenging and their reporting is not always optimal	4
A rule‐based approach for automatically extracting data from systematic reviews and their updates to model the risk of conclusion change	4
Estimating the reference interval from a fixed effects meta‐analysis	4
Inconsistencies in study eligibility criteria are common between non‐Cochrane systematic reviews and their protocols registered in PROSPERO	4
Selecting relevant moderators with Bayesian regularized meta‐regression	4
On the bias of complete‐ and shifting‐case meta‐regressions with missing covariates	4
A real‐world evaluation of the implementation of NLP technology in abstract screening of a systematic review	4
Bias propagation in network meta‐analysis models	4
Network meta‐analysis results against a fictional treatment of average performance: Treatment effects and ranking metric	4
Frequency of use and adequacy of Cochrane risk of bias tool 2 in non‐Cochrane systematic reviews published in 2020: Meta‐research study	4
	4
Feasibility and desirability of screening search results from Google Search exhaustively for systematic reviews: A cross‐case analysis	4
Response to: ‘Additional considerations and response to Graphical Representation of Overlap for OVErviews (GROOVE tool)”	4
Examining how meta‐analytic methods perform	3
TheCONSENSYSapproach: An instrument to supportCONtextual SENsitivityinSYStematicreviews	3
Capturing the underlying distribution in meta‐analysis: Credibility and tolerance intervals	3
SeroTracker‐RoB: A decision rule‐based algorithm for reproducible risk of bias assessment of seroprevalence studies	3
The consequences of neglected confounding and interactions in mixed‐effects meta‐regression: An illustrative example	3
	3
A framework for synthesizing intervention evidence from multiple sources into a single certainty of evidence rating: Methodological developments from a US National Academies of S	3
Commercial funding and estimated intervention effects in randomized clinical trials: Systematic review of meta‐epidemiological studies	3
A non‐parametric approach for jointly combining evidence on progression free and overall survival time in network meta‐analysis	3
ABCMETAapp: R shiny application for simulation‐based estimation of mean and standard deviation for meta‐analysis via approximate Bayesian computation	3
Synthesizing evidence from the earliest studies to support decision‐making: To what extent could the evidence be reliable?	3
On the double‐robustness and semiparametric efficiency of matching‐adjusted indirect comparisons	3
Assessment of key characteristics, methodology, and effect size measures used in meta‐analysis of human‐health‐related animal studies	3
Evaluation of the interim Cochrane rapid review methods guidance—A mixed‐methods study on the understanding of and adherence to the guidance	3
Comparison of statistical methods for integrating real‐world evidence in a rare events meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials	3
Incorporating historical control information in ANCOVA models using the meta‐analytic‐predictive approach	3
RIMeta: An R shiny tool for estimating the reference interval from a meta‐analysis	3
Population adjusted‐indirect comparisons in health technology assessment: A methodological systematic review	3
Meta‐analysis and partial correlation coefficients: A matter of weights	3
Facilitating open science practices for research syntheses: PreregRS guides preregistration	3
Calculating the power of a planned individual participant data meta‐analysis of randomised trials to examine a treatment‐covariate interaction with a time‐to‐event outcome	2
More than words: Novel visualizations for evidence synthesis	2
Estimating pairwise overlap in umbrella reviews: Considerations for using the corrected covered area (CCA) index methodology	2
DTAmetasa: An R shiny application for meta‐analysis of diagnostic test accuracy and sensitivity analysis of publication bias	2
	2
Robust variance estimation in small meta‐analysis with the standardized mean difference	2

Evaluation of statistical methods used to meta‐analyse results from interrupted time series studies: A simulation study	2
Reporting of test comparisons in diagnostic accuracy studies: A literature review	2
Exploring the relevance of the effect of geographical location when searching for studies using Google Search	2
A mapping exercise using automated techniques to develop a search strategy to identify systematic review tools	2
Appraisal methods and outcomes of AMSTAR 2 assessments in overviews of systematic reviews of interventions in the cardiovascular field: A methodological study	2
Catchii: Empowering literature review screening in healthcare	2
Measurement error in meta‐analysis (MEMA)—A Bayesian framework for continuous outcome data subject to non‐differential measurement error	2
Bayesian approaches to fixed effects meta‐analysis	2
Meta‐analysis of dichotomous and ordinal tests with an imperfect gold standard	2
Searching for medical devices – Practical guidance	2
A confidence interval robust to publication bias for random‐effects meta‐analysis of few studies	2
How to plan and manage an individual participant data meta‐analysis. An illustrative toolkit	2
Methodological considerations for novel approaches to covariate‐adjusted indirect treatment comparisons	2
Language inclusion in ecological systematic reviews and maps: Barriers and perspectives	2
A comparison of machine learning methods to find clinical trials for inclusion in new systematic reviews from their PROSPERO registrations prior to searching and screening	2
Four alternative methodologies for simulated treatment comparison: How could the use of simulation be re‐invigorated?	2
Crowdsourcing the identification of studies for COVID‐19‐related Cochrane Rapid Reviews	2
End‐user understanding of qualitative comparative analysis used within evidence synthesis: A mixed‐methods study	2
A semiparametric approach for meta‐analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies with multiple cut‐offs	2
When conducting a systematic review, can one trade search efficiency for potential publication bias?	2
Using qualitative comparative analysis as a mixed methods synthesis in systematic mixed studies reviews: Guidance and a worked example	2
Estimation of heterogeneity variance based on a generalized Q statistic in meta‐analysis of log‐odds‐ratio	2
Sample size calculation for clinical trials analyzed with the meta‐analytic‐predictive approach	2
Accuracy of conversion formula for effect sizes: A Monte Carlo simulation	2