meta (version 4.7-0)

read.rm5: Import RevMan 5 data files (.csv)

Description

Reads data file from Cochrane Intervention review created with RevMan 5 and creates a data frame from it.

Usage

read.rm5(file, sep=",", quote = "\"", title, numbers.in.labels=TRUE)

Arguments

file

The name of a file to read data values from.

sep

The field separator character. Values on each line of the file are separated by this character. The comma is the default field separator character in RevMan 5.

quote

The set of quoting characters. In RevMan 5 a "\"" is the default quoting character.

title

Title of Cochrane review.

numbers.in.labels

A logical indicating whether comparision number and outcome number should be printed at the beginning of the comparison (argument complab) and outcome label (argument outclab); this is the default in RevMan 5.

Value

A data frame containing the following components:

Details

Review Manager 5 (RevMan 5) is the current software used for preparing and maintaining Cochrane Reviews (http://community.cochrane.org/tools/review-production-tools/revman-5). RevMan 5 includes the ability to write Systematic reviews of interventions, Diagnostic test accuracy reviews, Methodology reviews and Overviews of reviews. This function provides the ability to read a data file from a Cochrane Intervention review created with RevMan 5; a data frame is created from it. Cochrane Intervention reviews are based on the comparison of two interventions.

In order to generate a data analysis file in RevMan 5 use the following Menu points: "File" - "Export" - "Data and analyses". It is mandatory to include the following fields in the exported data file by selecting them with the mouse cursor in the Export Analysis Data Wizard: (i) Comparison Number, (ii) Outcome Number, (iii) Subgroup Number. When these fields are not selected a corresponding error message will be printed in R. It is recommended to include all fields in the exported data file except for the last field "Risk of bias tables". For example, in order to redo the meta-analysis in R for the RevMan 5 data type "O-E and Variance" the fields "O-E" and "Variance" have to be selected in the Export Analysis Data Wizard. If the last field "Risk of bias tables" is selected the import in R fails with an error message "line X did not have Y elements".

By default in RevMan 5, the name of the exported data file is the title of the Cochrane Review. Accordingly, information on the title is extracted from the name of the exported data file (argument: file) if argument title is missing (default). Each respective meta-analysis for arguments event.e.pooled -- df.pooled is defined by values for "comp.no" and "outcome.no", and "grp.no".

References

Review Manager (RevMan) [Computer program]. Version 5.3. Copenhagen: The Nordic Cochrane Centre, The Cochrane Collaboration, 2014.

See Also

metabin, metacont, metagen, metacr

Examples

# Locate export data file "Fleiss93_CR.csv"
# in sub-directory of package "meta"
#
filename <- system.file("data/Fleiss93_CR.csv.gz", package = "meta")
#
Fleiss93_CR <- read.rm5(filename)

# Same result as R command example(Fleiss93):
#
metacr(Fleiss93_CR)

# Same result as R command example(Fleiss93cont):
#
metacr(Fleiss93_CR, 1, 2)