Abstract

Systematic review and meta-analysis and other forms of evidence syntheses are critical to inform guideline development and healthcare decision-making. Various software is available now a days to conduct meta-analysis. Some of them are code-based, few are not freely available, and some others have obvious limitations. SPSS is the most commonly used statistical package and has a graphical user interface making it user friendly. A recent version (v29) of SPSS has introduced the functionality for meta-analysis. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive and clear guide to public health, clinicians, and allied health professionals to perform and report a meta-analysis using SPSS.

We have first briefly explained few key statistical concepts relevant to meta-analysis. Then, we have provided three solved examples for meta-analysis using attached example datasets. We have also provided the interpretation and reporting for these three cases. Next, we have discussed about ancillary cases, and how meta-analysts can deal with other scenarios. Finally, we have provided the developers of SPSS with some suggestions for improvements and enhancement for incorporation in the future versions of this software.

Keywords:

systematic review, systematic review by SPSS, meta-regression, step-by-step guide, funnel plot, egger’s regression, harbord’s test, peter’s test, bubble plot

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How to Cite

Kabir, R., Syed, H. Z., Hayhoe, R., Parsa, A. D., Sivasubramanian, M., Mohammadnezhad, M., … Dwivedi, P. (2024). Meta-analysis using SPSS: a simple guide for clinicians, public health, and allied health specialists. The Evidence, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.61505/evidence.2024.2.1.25

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Russell Kabir, Kizhessery Rahna, Manav Jain, Aravind P Gandhi, Muhammad Aaqib Shamim, Shoban Babu Varthya, Surjit Singh, Pradeep Dwivedi, Haniya Zehra Syed, Richard Hayhoe, Ali Davod Parsa, Madhini Sivasubramanian, Masoud Mohammadnezhad, Brijesh Sathian

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Copyright© by the author(s). Published by the Evidence Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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