Integrating Multiple Data Sources for Meta-analysis to Improve Patient-Centered Outcomes Research [Methods Study], United States, 2013-2017

Meta-analyses combine the results of many studies to find out how well a treatment or other healthcare intervention works. Most meta-analyses use public sources of data, such as published journal articles, as the main sources of information for study results. But journal articles are not the only sources of study results. Some results appear in other places, such as clinical study reports. Clinical study reports are documents that describe what researchers did and found in much more detail than journal articles. However, these reports may not be available to the public. As a result, meta-analyses may not include all available information about a treatment.
The research team wanted to learn whether adding or replacing public and nonpublic data sources changed the results of meta-analyses. To find out, the research team added and replaced data as they conducted two meta-analyses. The first looked at adult use of a nerve-pain medicine. The second meta-analysis looked at adult use of a medicine to treat bipolar depression.