Systematic Reviews in Health Care: Meta-Analysis in Context [Hardcover]

Matthias Egger (Editor), George Davey Smith (Editor), Douglas Altman (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 072791488X | ISBN-13: 978-0727914880 | Publication Date: March 13, 2001 | Edition: 2

The second edition of this best-selling book has been thoroughly revised and expanded to reflect the significant changes and advances made in systematic reviewing. New features include discussion on the rationale, meta-analyses of prognostic and diagnostic studies and software, and the use of systematic reviews in practice.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A valuable resource to those preparing, appraising and using systematic reviews. Highly recommended. -- International Journal of Epidemiology, Sept 2002

From the Back Cover

The second edition of this best-selling book has been thoroughly revised and expanded to reflect the significant changes and advances made in systematic reviewing. New features include discussion on the rationale, meta-analyses of prognostic and diagnostic studies and software, and the use of systematic reviews in practice.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: BMJ Books; 2 edition (March 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 072791488X
• ISBN-13: 978-0727914880
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 9.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #491,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent text that is easy to understand, March 11, 2007

By 

Brant Inman (Somewhere out there) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Systematic Reviews in Health Care: Meta-Analysis in Context (Hardcover)

This book is written to be understood and used. Everything is easily accessible, even for the relatively innumerate, and presented in clear, easy English. The authors are to be congratulated on excellent pedagogical prose.

The major downside was a skinny statistical section that lacked depth (what was present was VERY clear however). Since the majority of the book is low-level, big-picture explanations of the principles of meta-analysis, I think that an expanded statistical section would not detract. In fact, because the rest of the book is so well explained, I suspect that most readers would have a good appetite for implementing the ideas presented. Those not inclined to read more details on implementation could just skip this section. In particular, I wished the authors had discussed how to combine simple proportions and rates across studies. This is arguably the simplest form of meta-analysis and the one for which nearly no advice exists to guide practise! There are tons of ways to transform and combine rates/proportions and these should have been developed, compared and constrasted for different scenarios. Similarly, I wish that even more Bayesian methods would be presented.

Lastly, the software section is old. New ideas using R, Revman, Bugs and other FREE software should be encouraged. Software that costs big dollars is probably not the best thing to present in an international book. Everyone should be able to reproduce the results at their home. Free software ensures this.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic definitive textbook in meta-analysis!, March 21, 2007

By 

E. Ding - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Systematic Reviews in Health Care: Meta-Analysis in Context (Hardcover)

This classic book by the legendary experts in meta-analysis and systematic review, Mattias Egger, George Davey Smith, and Doug Altman, is considered the most pre-eminent and most definitive textbook in this area. No other books can compare! Very easy to read with clear explanations, this is the most trusty reference textbook to own when doing systematic reviews and meta-analyses.