Systematic review identifies issues in effect modification directions and analysis handling in meta-analyses, suggesting the need for improvement.
In this systematic review of IPDMAs, protocols and reports often failed to prespecify anticipated effect modification directions, distinguish within-trial from between-trial analyses, and appropriately handle continuous variables. Concordance between protocols and reports was poor, with frequent omission of planned and addition of unplanned effect modification analyses.
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Gao et al. (2026) studied this question.
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