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

Maria Petropoulou; Orestis Efthimiou; Gerta Rücker; Guido Schwarzer; Toshi A Furukawa; Alessandro Pompoli; Huiberdina L Koek; Cinzia Del Giovane; Nicolas Rodondi; Dimitris Mavridis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0246631

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

PLoS One. 2021 Feb 8;16(2):e0246631. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246631. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Maria Petropoulou^{1

2}, Orestis Efthimiou^{3

4}, Gerta Rücker¹, Guido Schwarzer¹, Toshi A Furukawa⁵, Alessandro Pompoli⁶, Huiberdina L Koek⁷, Cinzia Del Giovane^{8

9}, Nicolas Rodondi^{8

10}, Dimitris Mavridis^{2

11}

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center, Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
² Department of Primary Education, Evidence Synthesis Methods Team, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece.
³ Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
⁵ Departments of Health Promotion and Human Behavior and Clinical Epidemiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine/School of Public Health, Kyoto, Japan.
⁶ Psychiatric Rehabilitation Clinic Villa San Pietro, Trento, Italy.
⁷ Department of Geriatric Medicine, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁸ Institute of Primary Health Care (BIHAM), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
⁹ Population Health Laboratory (#PopHealthLab), University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
¹⁰ Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
¹¹ Faculté de Médecine, Paris Descartes University, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Data Analysis*
Delivery of Health Care / methods*
Humans
Meta-Analysis as Topic
Research Design*
Software

Grants and funding

This work is part of the project “OPERAM: OPtimising thERapy to prevent Avoidable hospital admissions in the Multimorbid elderly” supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No. 634238. The work of MP, DM, HL.K, and NR is supported by the OPERAM project from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No. 634238. NR is also supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract No. 15.0137. OE is supported by project grant No. 180083 from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). GR was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), grant Nr. RU1747/1-2. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the EC and the Swiss government.