A review of methods for addressing components of interventions in meta-analysis

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 2; p. e0246631
• Main Authors: Petropoulou, Maria, Efthimiou, Orestis, Rücker, Gerta, Schwarzer, Guido, Furukawa, Toshi A., Pompoli, Alessandro, Koek, Huiberdina L., Del Giovane, Cinzia, Rodondi, Nicolas, Mavridis, Dimitris
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 08.02.2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Antidepressants; Anxiety; Behavior modification; Behavior therapy; Biology and Life Sciences; Biometrics; Care and treatment; Cognitive ability; Computer and Information Sciences; Computer programs; Confidence intervals; Drafting software; Editing; Education; Epidemiology; Evaluation; Exercise; Graduate schools; Graduate studies; Health care; Health care facilities; Health promotion; Intervention; Management; Medical protocols; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Meta-analysis; Methods; Panic attacks; Panic disorders; Physical Sciences; Preventive medicine; Primary care; Psychiatry; Psychotherapy; Public health; Regression analysis; Rehabilitation; Research and Analysis Methods; Secondary data analysis; Social Sciences; Software; Statistical analysis; Statistics; Subgroups; Synthesis; Teaching methods; Visualization; Germany; Greece; Switzerland
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246631

Many healthcare interventions are complex, consisting of multiple, possibly interacting, components. Several methodological articles addressing complex interventions in the meta-analytical context have been published. We hereby provide an overview of methods used to evaluate the effects of complex interventions with meta-analytical models. We summarized the methodology, highlighted new developments, and described the benefits, drawbacks, and potential challenges of each identified method. We expect meta-analytical methods focusing on components of several multicomponent interventions to become increasingly popular due to recently developed, easy-to-use, software tools that can be used to conduct the relevant analyses. The different meta-analytical methods are illustrated through two examples comparing psychotherapies for panic disorder.