I have conducted a systematic review into the prevalence of victimisation in individuals with Autism. This provided a large number of relevant, high quality studies which I have synthesised into a narrative. However, a meta analysis would assist with the data analysis, especially as there is a substantial variation in the prevalence rates between studies.
I am a complete novice at meta analysis, and would benefit from guidance as to whether a meta analysis of prevalence rates is possible and if so, how this is conducted. I have found papers in which that has been conducted, but to someone with no prior experience, it isn't clear how this was conducted.
Could anybody provide me with guidance on how to do this or point me in the direction of good teaching materials?
MetaXL is very easy to use. After getting it, I suggest opening the SchizophreniaPrev (see screenshot attached), then replacing the example data with your data.
Link here: https://www.epigear.com/index_files/metaxl.html
I would advice to invest some time in learning the basics about meta-analysis before learning how to do the analysis, especially because you observed "significant variation in prevalence rates". Understaning heterogeneity and how to explore relevant sources of heterogeneity will be key for you conclusion. I have found the book 'Introduction to Meta-analysis' by Borenstein et al. the best source for a beginner. It is gentle but comprehensive introduction to meta-analysis. Michael Borenstein also has a Youtube channel with some worked examples (for their software Comprhensive meta-analysis), but the examples will help you understand the reasoning behind the analyses.
I would agree with the above commenter and say that you should first learn the basics of meta-analysis, perhaps through a course if one is available to you. Otherwise, there are some good books - Intro to Meta-Analysis by Borenstein et al, as the above commenter mentioned, is probably the most accessible. It does not cover meta-analysis of prevalence measures in great depth, though, so that is something you'd want to learn about after you went through that book or a course. There are several specific considerations with prevalence, so it would be worth having a good foundation in general meta-analytic methods before tackling a meta-analysis of prevalence.
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