Addressing missing participant data in systematic reviews. Part 2: continuous outcomes

Tags: Workshop
Ebrahim S1, Akl E2, Guyatt G3, Mustafa R3, Alonso P4, Johnston B5, Sun X6, Walter S7, Heels-Ansdell D7
1McMaster University & Stanford University, 2American University of Beirut, 3McMaster University, 4Iberoamerican Cochrane Center, 5The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Toronto, Canada, 6Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-based Medicine, Xinqiao Hospital, China, 7Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, McMaster University, Canada

Objectives:

To describe how to use an innovative approach to addressing missing participant data for continuous outcomes in systematic reviews.

Description:

The workshop will consist of the following:

1. An interactive presentation of the proposed approach: a complete case analysis and four imputation strategies for making plausible assumptions about the outcomes of participants with missing data. These strategies increasingly challenge the robustness of the pooled estimates of the intervention effect in the systematic review. We will also describe how to calculate the proportion of patients who have an important treatment effect for each strategy, using the minimally important difference (MID) threshold, and provide guidance on how to use the results to judge the impact of missing participant data on risk of bias (30 minutes).

2. A hands-on exercise using a spreadsheet to apply the approach. Participants will use data provided by facilitators. We will use two example systematic reviews to illustrate the application of the approach: one review restricted to one instrument measuring the outcome, and another using different instruments to measure the same construct (40 minutes).

3. An open discussion of the advantages and limitations of the proposed approach (20 minutes).

Note: This workshop will not be held in a computer lab. Participants may bring laptops to allow hands-on participation.