Meta-analysis in Dentistry - Basic course

This course takes you through the concepts of meta-analysis and the various graphical representations. Meta-analysis is an important statistical tool for the synthesis of quantitative data on outcomes derived from scientific studies. The studies are selected following the conduct of a systematic review related to a specific research question. This course explains the different types of data commonly used for meta-analysis and describes the derivation of their pooled estimates. The pooled estimates inform the scientific community of the benefits or redundancy of any treatments or interventions. The content is discussed in simple language with good examples derived from dental literature for you to understand better.

The other important aspect when meta-analysis is done is the presence of heterogeneity. These are variations among the selected studies, the outcome data of which are included in the meta-analysis. The variation can occur due to a lot of reasons that can affect the reliability and validity of the meta-analysis pooled estimates. Understanding heterogeneity and how to interpret it effect on the results is important. The course further deals with forest and funnel plots which are graphical presentations of data and give a very clear understanding on the various factors affecting the results. These plots are a form of scatter plot and need to be interpreted along with the single measures of pooled estimates.

Come join this course and take yourself to the next level in understanding and interpreting meta-analysis in dentistry.