How to interpret a meta-analysis?

Abstract

There is an enormous and ever-growing quantity of healthcare information available and practitioners must transform it into knowledge to be able to use it in their clinical practice. Even readers who do not conduct scientific studies themselves need to understand the scientific method in detail to be able to critically evaluate scientific articles. Evidence-based healthcare (EBH) can be defined as the link between good scientific research and clinical practice and systematic reviews constitute one of the forms of research excellence proposed within EBH. Systematic reviews employ rigorous methods that reduce the occurrence of bias. Systematic reviews with meta-analyses generally optimize the results found, because quantitative analysis of the studies included in the review yields additional information. In this paper, we will discuss how to interpret a meta-analysis and how to apply subset and sensitivity analysis strategies and we will also describe possible sources of heterogeneity and common errors that can affect a meta-analysis.