meta (version 0.5)

metacum: Cumulative meta-analysis

Description

Performs a cumulative meta-analysis.

Usage

metacum(x, pooled="fixed", sortvar)

Arguments

x

An object of class meta.

pooled

A character string indicating whether a fixed or random effects model is used for pooling. Either "fixed" or "random", can be abbreviated.

sortvar

An optional vector used to sort the individual studies (must be of same length as x$TE).

Value

• An object of class c("metacum", "meta") with corresponding print, plot function. The object is a list containing the following components:
• TE, seTE
  Estimated treatment effect and standard error of pooled estimate in cumulative meta-analyses.
• studlab
  Study label describing addition of studies.
• sm
  Summary measure.
• method
  Method used for pooling.
• k
  Number of studies combined in meta-analysis.
• pooled
  As defined above.

Details

A cumulative meta-analysis is performed. Studies are included sequentially as defined by sortvar.

References

Cooper H & Hedges LV (1994), The Handbook of Research Synthesis. Newbury Park, CA: Russell Sage Foundation.

See Also

metabin, metacont, print.meta

Examples

data(Fleiss93)
meta1 <- metabin(event.e, n.e, event.c, n.c,
                 data=Fleiss93, studlab=study,
                 sm="RR", meth="I")
meta1

metacum(meta1)
metacum(meta1, pooled="random")
plot(metacum(meta1, pooled="random"))